Why is this information necessary?

If you want to claim maintenance payments in your tax return, it is checked whether you have enough money left over to cover your living expenses despite the maintenance payments. The maintenance payments must therefore be in reasonable proportion to your net income.

This amount is called the sacrifice limit (Opfergrenze). The sacrifice limit is therefore the maximum amount you can "sacrifice" without endangering your own ability to pay.

How is the sacrifice limit calculated?

There are fixed guidelines for calculating the sacrifice limit. Maintenance payments are only fully recognised for tax purposes if they do not exceed one percent for each full 500 Euro of net income.

Example: Your net income is 21.000 Euro. Then your sacrifice limit is 42 percent of 21.000 euros, i.e. 8.820 euros. If you have actually made maintenance payments of, for example, 9.500 Euro, you can still only claim 8.820 Euro for tax purposes. If you are married or have children, the sacrifice limit decreases accordingly.