> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://help.immodio.app/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://help.immodio.app/en/anleitung/einnahmen-und-ausgaben/buchhaltung-erweiterung/10089000-mautgebuehren.md). # Toll charges Help on the Immodio entry item Toll charges.
You use this category for **tolls and road, bridge, tunnel or comparable road usage charges** that you incur on a **journey occasioned by your letting activity** and that can be taken into account for tax as running income-related expenditure or incidental travel costs. {% hint style="info" %} What matters is not merely that you have paid a toll. The **journey itself has to be economically connected with your letting activity**. {% endhint %} Typical cases can be, for example, journeys: * to your let property for a **handover or a hand-back of an apartment**, * to an appointment with a **tenant**, * to an appointment with a **tradesman**, * to inspect damage or a necessary repair, * to a let condominium apartment for an **owners' meeting**, * to an appointment with a property manager, as far as it concerns your let property, * to a viewing of your let property, * or to another appointment occasioned directly by your letting activity. The official wage tax guidance expressly includes actual expenditure on **the use of roads and car parks** among incidental travel costs for tax purposes, provided the associated travel costs are to be recognised as travel expenses. Toll charges can therefore in principle be taken into account in addition to the travel costs themselves where the underlying journey constitutes a corresponding letting-related trip for tax purposes. #### **Which charges belong in this category, for example?** The following in particular can be entered here: * **motorway tolls** * **road tolls** * **tunnel charges** * **bridge tolls** * **charges for toll passes or toll mountain roads** * **distance-based road usage charges** * a **vignette**, as far as it can be attributed to your letting activity for tax purposes * comparable charges for the use of a road or a transport link This can be relevant, for example, with a let property abroad where you pay a motorway vignette or a distance-based toll for the journey to that property. The category covers **only the road usage charge itself**. #### **Basic requirement: the journey has to be occasioned by your letting activity** Under Section 9 EStG, income-related expenditure is expenditure to **acquire, secure and maintain income**. A toll charge can therefore only be attributed to income from letting and leasing where there is a sufficiently specific economic connection between the journey and your letting activity. A typical case is, for example: You live in Germany and own a let holiday or residential property in Austria. You travel to the property because a necessary repair has to be agreed there with a trade business and the work carried out then has to be inspected. For the journey you buy an Austrian motorway vignette. Where the journey actually serves your letting activity, the toll or vignette occasioned by it can in principle be attributed to the letting-related travel costs. The position is different where you cover the same route exclusively for a **private holiday**. There is then no connection with your rental income and the toll does not belong in this category. #### **Example: a journey to a handover of an apartment** You own a let apartment several hundred kilometres away from where you live. After a change of tenant you travel to the apartment yourself in order to: * carry out the hand-back with the previous tenant, * document the condition of the apartment, * and then hand the apartment over to the new tenant. On the route a total of **€28 in toll charges** arises at a toll tunnel. The journey is occasioned directly by your letting activity. The **€28 in toll charges** can therefore in principle be posted to the **"**[**Toll charges**](/en/anleitung/einnahmen-und-ausgaben/buchhaltung-erweiterung/10089000-mautgebuehren.md)**"** category. The travel costs themselves are taken into account separately under the tax rules applicable to that journey. #### **Do not mix a private journey and the letting activity** A toll charge does not become deductible for tax merely because one of your properties happens to be on the same route. What matters is the **actual reason for the journey**. **Example: an exclusively private journey** You travel privately on holiday for two weeks and on the way you pay **€45 in tolls.** The fact that you also own a let property in the same country does not turn this private toll into income-related expenditure. #### **A journey with mixed reasons** It can be more difficult where a trip has both private and letting-related reasons. **Example**: You travel privately to Austria for a week. During your stay you additionally visit your let apartment there for two hours and speak to a tradesman. The motorway vignette was, however, needed for the entire private holiday trip anyway. In such cases the full vignette should **not automatically be attributed to the letting activity**. What matters is the extent to which the costs were objectively occasioned by the letting activity. Under Section 9 EStG, expenditure can only be attributed to the type of income in respect of which it actually arose. Comprehensible documentation of the purpose of the trip is particularly important with trips of this kind that have mixed reasons. #### **An annual vignette used privately and for the letting activity** With an annual vignette you should likewise examine **what the vignette is actually used for**. Where you buy an annual vignette solely because you travel regularly to a let property and do not use the vignette privately, a full attribution to the letting activity can in principle be considered. Where, on the other hand, you also use the same vignette for numerous private journeys, the full annual amount should not be recorded as income-related expenditure of your letting activity. In such a case only the share attributable to the letting activity under objective criteria is relevant. The basis remains the economic connection between the expenditure and the respective income under Section 9 EStG. #### **Distinguish a toll paid late from a fine** Where you pay a normal toll owed later, because it was for example only invoiced afterwards, this is in principle still the road usage charge concerned. The following are, however, to be distinguished from it: * **fines** * **warning fines** * **regulatory fines** * and comparable sanctions, which arise, for example, because a required toll or vignette was not paid properly. Sanctions of this kind may not simply be posted to this category together with the toll itself. Section 4 (5) sentence 1 no. 8 EStG generally excludes fines, regulatory fines and warning fines, and the expenditure connected with them, from deduction for tax; that provision applies correspondingly to income-related expenditure through Section 9 (5) EStG. **Example: a missing vignette** A vignette costing **€12** would actually have been required for a letting-related journey. Because you drove without a valid vignette, a sanction is additionally imposed. For tax purposes the normal **€12 toll or vignette charge** is to be distinguished from the **sanction for the breach**. {% hint style="warning" %} The fine or warning fine does **not** become deductible because the original journey served the letting activity. {% endhint %} #### **Receipts and documentation** With toll charges in particular it should remain permanently verifiable: * **when** the journey took place, * **which let property** was concerned, * **why** the journey was necessary, * which route was driven, * and which toll charge arose in the process. Depending on the toll system, the following can serve as evidence, for example: * a toll receipt, * a vignette receipt, * an electronic toll statement, * a credit card statement together with the toll receipt, * an invoice from a toll provider, * a booking confirmation for a digital vignette. A mere payment to a toll provider does not in itself show **why the trip was connected with your letting activity**. The purpose of the trip in particular should therefore be documented comprehensibly. #### **Do not recover from the tenant** Toll charges for the landlord's own journeys are part of the costs of your **administration, that is of performing landlord duties personally**, and are not recoverable operating costs of the building. The **"Recoverable in the operating cost statement"** switch therefore has to **stay disabled** for this category.