File Your Tax Return Electronically with Wundertax
Getting in touch with the tax office: which numbers do I have to provide?
Contacting the tax office (Finanzamt): Ordnungsbegriff, Transfernummer & Telenummer
There are many reasons to file your tax return (Steuererklärung) online with Wundertax: Our interview-based online tool is convenient, easy to understand, and clearly structured. The interview questions themselves are designed for different target groups and will automatically suggest relevant deductible expenses for you. Our live tax calculator keeps you constantly up to date on what your tax refund (Steuererstattung) will be. Finally, the whole process only takes about 15-20 minutes and then your tax return is on its way.
After your online tax interview, you will see an overview of your data. If you’ve made a mistake or forgotten something, don’t stress, you can simply add or change it. Our tax tools will automatically check your data to ensure everything is plausible and will let you know if it detected any errors. After you’ve confirmed that your data is correct, you will receive your compressed tax return and can choose whether you’d like to send it to the tax office online or per post.
If you don’t want to go to the post office, simply choose online submission. Just upload a valid ID document and, if necessary, your registration certificate (Meldebestätigung) or residence confirmation so that we can verify your identity.
Paper submission with electronic data transmission & telenumber (Telenummer)
If you decide to submit your tax return per post, you still need to authenticate yourself – you can do this by downloading and printing the compressed tax return, signing it and sending it off to your local tax office. After you’ve downloaded your tax return, it will also be automatically transmitted electronically to the tax office via the official ELSTER interface. You will find your unique and individual telenumber (Telenummer) consisting of 3 letters and numbers on your tax return printout which is assigned by the tax office upon electronic receival to process your tax return.
Sorting key (Ordnungsbegriff)
The tax office will assign you a tax number in your first tax assessment notice if you still don’t have one. If you move residences, you will receive a new tax number from your new local tax office (not to be confused with tax ID which never changes). If you’ve submitted your tax return electronically without a tax number, a uniquely generated 13-digit number will be inserted in its place – this is called the Elster sorting key. It can be found in the header of your compressed tax return directly above the telenumber (which is formed from the last 3 digits of your sorting key).
What do I need to provide if I need to contact the tax office about my tax return?
If you have questions about your tax return and want to get in touch with the tax office, you will need your tax number, or if one isn’t available, your sorting key. You can also provide the Elster transfer number (Elster-Transfernummer) as an alternative. The transfer number is located on the left side of your compressed tax return. As of 2020, you can find the sorting key and transfer number on each page of the compressed tax return – before then, they were only on page 2.
