Employers are generally obliged to transmit their employees' wage tax statements electronically to the tax authorities. The employer must provide employees with a printout of their wage tax statement in accordance with the official model or make it available electronically.
The transmission of the wage tax statement data must be authenticated in accordance with the officially prescribed data set. The certificate required for authentication must be applied for once in the tax authorities' service portal. There are also other registration options for ELSTER use (e.g. app, ID card).
An exception to the electronic transmission of the wage tax certificate applies to employers without automated payroll accounting who only employ workers in marginal employment in their private households within the meaning of Section 8a SGB IV ("556-euro job" (2024: 538-euro job)). They can issue a corresponding manual wage tax certificate.