The general rule of section 33 and the reasonable burden

Mr Albers, 71 and unmarried, has total income (Gesamtbetrag der Einkünfte) of 14,000 €. In one year he pays out of his own pocket 1,900 € for medically prescribed aids and medicines, 600 € for a civil lawsuit against his neighbour over a hedge and 300 € for gluten-free food. He expects a deduction of 2,800 €. The tax office deducts 1,200 €, and each of the three cuts is written in the statute.

What makes a burden extraordinary

Section 33 of the German Income Tax Act (EStG) is the catch-all rule for private spending a person cannot avoid. Private expenses are otherwise irrelevant for tax: rent, clothing and food are paid out of taxed income. Subsection 1 makes an exception, but only under conditions that must all be met at the same time.

First, there must be expenses, meaning amounts the taxpayer actually bears. Second, they must be higher than those of the overwhelming majority of taxpayers in a comparable position. Third, they must arise for the taxpayer unavoidably. If any one of these features is missing, the size of the expense no longer matters at all.

The statute defines the comparison group precisely: the same income situation, the same wealth situation and the same family status. That is why ordinary living costs are never extraordinary. A family spending more on food than a single person does not count, because the comparison is with other families of the same size and situation.

The statute speaks of expenses that arise for the taxpayer and of a burden. The cases in this course therefore always work with the amounts the taxpayer has borne personally, that is after any refunds, for instance from the health insurer. What someone else has paid does not appear in any of the calculations.

Two phrases in subsection 1 are easily overlooked. The first is "on application": the tax office does not look for extraordinary burdens on its own initiative, they have to be claimed in the return. The second is "the part": even an accepted burden is never deducted in full, only to the extent that it exceeds the reasonable burden.

Unavoidable: three possible reasons

Subsection 2, sentence 1, says when expenses arise unavoidably: when the taxpayer cannot escape them for legal, factual or moral reasons. A single one of these reasons is enough, they do not have to coincide. Spending that could just as well have been left undone is therefore excluded.

The statutory text as read lists the three reasons without explaining them further. The obvious example of a factual reason is an illness, which strikes from outside and causes treatment costs. That is exactly where the evidence rules of the implementing ordinance come in, which the second module covers.

Being unavoidable in principle is not enough on its own. Sentence 1 also demands two properties relating to the amount: the expenses must be necessary in the circumstances, and they must not exceed a reasonable amount. Someone who chooses a more elaborate version of a necessary service stays outside section 33 with the extra cost.

The word "insofar" carries this distinction. An excessive expense does not drop out entirely, but only its necessary and reasonable part is unavoidable. The test therefore runs in two steps: first, whether the expense is unavoidable at all, then, up to what amount it is.

What is excluded from the outset

Even before the question of unavoidability, subsection 2, sentence 2, sets aside expenses that the statute takes into account elsewhere. Business expenses, income-related expenses (Werbungskosten) and special expenses (Sonderausgaben) are disregarded. This prevents a double deduction and makes section 33 subsidiary: it applies only when no more specific rule covers the expense.

For two special expenses the sentence adds a qualification. Costs of one's own vocational training under section 10(1) no. 7 and school fees under no. 9 are disregarded only insofar as they are actually deductible as special expenses. The excess is not excluded for that reason alone, but must still pass the rest of the test.

• Business expenses and income-related expenses already reduce income and are disregarded under sentence 2.
• Special expenses are also set aside, own vocational training and school fees only to the extent a special-expense deduction is actually possible.
• Dietary food is expressly not an extraordinary burden under sentence 3, even when an illness requires it.
• Litigation costs are excluded in principle under sentence 4, with a narrow exception where the taxpayer's livelihood is at risk.

The exclusion of dietary food is worded without any condition. Sentence 3 does not ask whether the special diet was prescribed by a doctor or is medically indispensable. Anyone who has to buy more expensive food because of an intolerance therefore cannot claim the extra cost under section 33, however unavoidable it may be in the individual case.

For litigation costs, too, the statute begins with an exclusion. Sentence 4 allows only a tightly drawn exception tied to the taxpayer's livelihood and vital needs. How to read that exception is shown in the second module; for the calculation in this module it is enough that an ordinary dispute between neighbours does not reach it.

This yields a fixed order of testing. First ask whether the expense is already deductible elsewhere. Then whether the statute expressly excludes it. Only after that come unavoidability, necessity and reasonableness, and at the very end the reasonable burden. Working in this order means never calculating with amounts that will not count anyway.

Where the deduction sits in the calculation

Extraordinary burdens are deducted from total income. Section 2(3) EStG builds this figure from the sum of income, reduced by the old-age relief amount, the single-parent relief amount and the deduction under section 13(3). Under section 2(4), total income minus special expenses and extraordinary burdens gives income (Einkommen).

Total income thus plays a double role. It is the figure from which the excess part is deducted, and at the same time the base on which the reasonable burden is measured. A taxpayer with higher income carries a larger share of his extraordinary costs himself before anything moves for tax purposes.

Because the deduction reduces income and not the tax itself, the actual saving depends on the personal tax rate. The same deduction is worth less to a taxpayer in the lower part of the tariff than to someone with a high marginal rate. Where no income tax is due in any case, even an accepted deduction has no effect.

The table of the reasonable burden

Subsection 3 fixes the share of extraordinary costs that each person has to bear. The reasonable burden (zumutbare Belastung) is a percentage of total income. How high that percentage is depends on three features: the amount of total income, the applicable tariff and the number of children.

The rows distinguish first by children. For taxpayers without children the tariff decides: whoever is taxed under the basic tariff of section 32a(1) carries one percentage point more in every bracket than spouses under the splitting procedure. Once children are counted, the table no longer asks about the tariff, only about their number.

Which children count is set out in subsection 3, sentence 2: those for whom the taxpayer is entitled to an allowance under section 32(6) or to child benefit. The statute refers to the entitlement. An adult child for whom no such entitlement remains does not lower the reasonable burden, even if the child still lives in the parents' home.

The three columns depend on total income alone. The statute itself names the limits of 15,340 and 51,130 euros as fixed amounts. Which column applies is therefore decided by the total income of the year in question, not by gross salary and not by taxable income.

The spread of the table is considerable: the highest rate is seven times the lowest. A family with three children and a middle income bears one percent of its total income itself, a single person with a high income seven percent. The table is thus the real social steering instrument of section 33.

Applying the percentage, and what the text leaves open

If total income lies in the first bracket, that is at no more than 15,340 euros, the calculation is unambiguous. The rate of the first column is applied to total income, and the result is the reasonable burden. Only what the accepted expenses amount to above that is deducted; if they stay below it, the deduction is zero.

In the first bracket this gives a threshold you can read off directly. With total income of 10,000 euros and a rate of five percent, extraordinary burdens start to count only above 500 euros; at two percent, already above 200 euros. Every euro above that threshold reduces total income in full.

If total income is higher, a question arises that the statutory text as read does not answer expressly: does the higher rate apply to the whole amount, or only to the part that falls into each bracket? The table names brackets and percentages, but gives no instruction on how they combine.

The administrative guidance that addresses this could not be retrieved when we read the sources on 23 September 2026. This course therefore only works through cases whose total income lies in the first bracket. For higher incomes, do not estimate the reasonable burden yourself; follow the tax office's calculation in the assessment notice instead.

One effect of the table holds regardless of that question: children lower the reasonable burden in every bracket. A married couple with one or two children in the first bracket bears two percent instead of four. That often decides whether a medium-sized medical bill has any tax effect at all.