The tax administration's ELSTER service portal has been set up at www.elster.de for the electronic submission of tax returns.

ELSTER is the tax administration's platform-independent service portal that enables the paperless submission of tax data via an interactive web application with maximum security, quickly and conveniently.

Benefits and advantages of electronic submission:

• Transfer of data from the previous year,
• Tax calculation,
• Pre-filled tax return (document retrieval),
• Support for visually impaired users,
• Comparison of the tax office's return data with the values declared by the citizen.

At www.elster.de you will also find information on, for example, income tax returns, trade tax and corporate income tax returns, as well as advance VAT returns, recapitulative statements, wage tax returns, wage tax certificates and capital gains tax returns.

The tax forms can be found on the Forms Management System (FMS) page of the Federal Tax Administration, see "Further information".

However, paper forms are also available at every tax office.

However, for tax returns that by law may only be filed electronically - such as the trade tax return - there are no longer any forms stored in the Form Management System.

Paper receipts/donation receipts no longer need to be submitted, but must be retained. For more details, please refer to the leaflet "Handling receipts". You can find this under "Further information".