This functionality allows Circula users to export their submitted trips in a bundle. The export consists of a PDF with an overview of all trips, the associated tax-free additional meal expenses, and the total of the additional expenses for meal thresholds reimbursed by the employer.

If employees travel for more than eight hours on business, under certain circumstances non-reimbursed additional meal expenses can be claimed as income-related expenses in the private tax return. This applies if the employer reimbursed no or only part of the tax-free additional meal expenses. This export provides support with a helpful overview of the reimbursed and non-reimbursed amounts.

There are possibilities to claim unreimbursed travel expenses with a private vehicle as income-related expenses as well. However, such travel is not submitted and processed in Circula. Circula's travel expense functionality is for reimbursing travel expenses and/or documenting non-reimbursable travel by company car.

General expenses processed in Circula are usually irrelevant for income-related expenses in the private tax return.

Only tax advisors with appropriate qualifications are authorized to provide you with an assessment of your questions.

Taxpayers must declare the following on their tax return:

The structure of the export follows the input form of ELSTER, the online form for filing private tax returns. The values are shown and named as they are listed in ELSTER.

The rates mentioned are levied in bundles per destination. For Germany the lump sums are deposited, for other destinations not and must be entered by the user.

Here all travel days are bundled, which take place within Germany. I.e. it can also be only trip segments, if they were abroad to another part. The daily rates are stored in ELSTER and therefore not in the export.

Absence over 8h: Here all one-day trips within Germany with a duration of more than eight hours are summed up (currently: 14€ per day).

Arrival and departure days: Here all arrival and departure days are summed up, for which the German rate follows (currently: 14€ per day). I.e. "5" means here that the user had five arrival and/or departure days according to German rates.

24h absence: All full travel days within Germany are summed up here (currently 28€ per day). I.e. For a total of two three-day trips, "2" would be written here, since the first and third days of both trips do not count as full travel days.

Reduction due to reimbursed meals: If the employer has reimbursed meals, additional meal expenses must be reduced (e.g. 5.60 euros for breakfast). Here, the sum of all reductions is totaled. Only the actual reduction applies, i.e. if lunch and dinner were reimbursed on the day of arrival, the reduction is capped at the arrival day rate of €14.00.

Here the travel days per destination are bundled. If a trip had multiple destinations (with different meal rates), it will be split accordingly. The foreign daily rates are not stored in ELSTER and therefore listed per day in the export from Circula.

Here the actual reimbursements by the employer are summed up.