GIROKONTO - BASIC ACCOUNT IN GERMANY
➡ Girokonto, Girocard or EC-Karte Is the main bank account in Germany. It is credited with wages or other income.
✔️This is the main account from which all recurring payments are debited:
- accommodation
- electricity
- Internet
– insurance
- mobile connection
– travel cards
– fitness
and other contractual payments.
✔️This account characterizes the presence of the first two letters in the number - DE.
🔹 Very often in Germany it is proposed to conclude a SEPA-Mandat, which involves automatic write-offs from Girokonto.
🔸 Most often, this card cannot be used to pay on the Internet, as well as outside Europe.
➡️Therefore, many banks offer, sometimes free of charge, an additional card of the international systems VISA or MasterCard.
We've covered Girokonto's main free service offerings, with their pros and cons. Relevance of data as of the date of publication of the article.
The following banks were included in our TOP-list:
UPDATE May 12, 2021: BaFin has sent special managers to N26 to monitor and control!
In order to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing in N26 special representative from BaFin appointed.
It is probably worth refraining from storing large amounts in this bank and using it as the main one until all issues are resolved with the regulator.
Still have questions? Write us and we will answer you in detail.
WHEN A JOINT FAMILY ACCOUNT IS NOT PROFITABLE
👫 👭 👬 Many couples who are married or living together have a joint bank account (Oder-Konto) 💳. This is useful for planning expenses for daily needs such as paying rent, buying groceries, etc. And in general, the total bill does not raise questions from the tax authorities.
💶 💎 🏠 But what happens when larger amounts are deposited into the joint account? What if large payments come from one high-income spouse? For example, payments from the inheritance of one of the spouses, annual bonuses, money from the sale of a company, etc.
💶 / 💶 The tax office considers HALF of the amount on the joint account, a kind of gift 🎁 to another spouse.
❗️Germany has a gift tax.
🔹For married couple gift amount in 500'000 € for 10 years not taxed, everything above is taxed.
If the income of one of the spouses within 10 years has exceeded 1 million euros, then half of the amount over 1 million euros will be subject to GIFT TAX
🔹For co-living partners in a civil marriage, the amount of exemption from gift tax (Persönlicher Freibetrag) is much less - 20'000 € ❗️
▶ ️Gift tax ranges from 7 to 50% in Germany.
