Field help: (2023) Withdrawals

Withdrawals, including contributions in kind, services and usage, are money, goods, products, services and benefits which you have withdrawn from the business in the course of the financial year for yourself, for your household or for other non-business purposes.

A withdrawal therefore basically requires a withdrawal will and a withdrawal treatment. You should enter the applicable value-added tax in the business income.

Private withdrawals can be, for example:

• Private usage share of a vehicle which is assigned to the business assets.
• Private usage share of a company telephone or telephone line.
• The withdrawal of goods and items from business assets with the corresponding book value.
• Other uses and services, for example, the deployment of company employees for private purposes.
• Money withdrawals, for example, privately initiated withdrawals from the company bank account or payments from the company cash register.

Withdrawals - other than money - must always be recognised at their partial value. As a result, when assets are withdrawn, the hidden reserves contained are disclosed and the taxable profit is increased. The withdrawal of uses is to be valued at the actual cost price.

If you remove items from your business assets and donate them as a non-cash donation for charitable, benevolent, scientific, churchly or religious purposes, you can also recognise the book value instead of the partial value and thus avoid the disclosure of hidden reserves (so-called book value privilege pursuant to sect. 6, para. 1, no. 4, sentence 4 of the Income Tax Act (EStG)). However, only this book value is then tax-deductible as a donation.