TikTok income and tax: Creator Rewards, LIVE gifts and Shop commissions.

For income tax TikTok is simple: whoever makes content self-employed, sustainedly and with the intention to make a profit, and receives money or products for it, runs a trade (§ 15 Abs. 2 EStG) and registers it within one month with the municipality and, through the questionnaire for tax registration, with the tax office (§ 138 Abs. 1, 1b und 4 AO; § 14 Abs. 1 GewO; NRW; Hessen, Leitfaden S. 4). Profit is business income less business expenses (§ 4 Abs. 3 EStG). Employees must file a return once side income exceeds €410 a year (§ 46 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 EStG); trade tax arises only above trade income of €24,500 (§ 11 Abs. 1 Satz 3 Nr. 1 GewStG).

For VAT it depends on who the recipient of your service is. For Creator Rewards and Shop commissions it is the platform: a service to a business, supplied where the recipient runs its business (§ 3a Abs. 2 UStG). If it is based in another EU country, the supply is not taxable in Germany, and the recipient owes the tax there. If you charge VAT, you report such supplies by the 25th day after the end of the quarter in the EC Sales List to the Federal Central Tax Office (§ 18a Abs. 2 UStG) and separately in line 35 of the VAT return (§ 18b Satz 1 Nr. 2 UStG); for that you need your own USt-IdNr. (§ 27a Abs. 1 UStG). Applying this to TikTok is our conclusion; it assumes that an EU company is your contracting party. Have your tax adviser confirm it.

LIVE gifts are the unclear case. You receive the money from the platform, the occasion comes from the viewers. For income tax that does not matter: business income is every inflow in money or money's worth caused by the business (H 4.7 EStH), and the NRW tax administration counts fan gifts and donations among it. For VAT it depends on whom you supply and where that person is based; no official source says this for LIVE gifts. Bavaria points out that the turnover from a Gutschrift belongs in the VAT return even if no VAT is shown on it (FAQ Influencer, S. 8). Keep the statements complete and let your tax adviser make the classification.

As a Kleinunternehmer you file no EC Sales List (§ 18a Abs. 4 UStG) and no VAT return (§ 19 Abs. 1 Satz 2 UStG). Only supplies taxable in Germany count towards the limit (§ 19 Abs. 2 UStG): invoices to brands in Germany and kept samples, because total turnover is measured by the taxable amount, which for barter is the value of the product (Abschnitt 19.2 Abs. 2 Satz 4 UStAE). Rewards and commissions from another EU country do not count on this reading; that is a conclusion from the statute, not an explicit rule for creators. If a Gutschrift shows VAT you do not owe, object to it (§ 14 Abs. 2 Satz 6 UStG).

Two duties apply to everything: statements are accounting records and are kept for eight years (§ 147 Abs. 1 Nr. 4 und Abs. 3 AO), and amounts in foreign currency are converted for VAT at the Federal Ministry of Finance's monthly rates (§ 16 Abs. 6 UStG). Download the statements from the creator portal and the Shop dashboard while you still have access.

Affliq imports your TikTok Shop statement and turns each line into a payout with its tax case; each commission shows three amounts, estimated, settled, paid out, with clawbacks named. The platform master data say who pays and from where; the tax case follows, and the EC Sales List per quarter if you charge VAT. You keep samples with value and whereabouts, brand deals get their invoice from the deal, the Kleinunternehmer counter counts what is taxable in Germany, and at year end everything is in the tax package for your adviser. Affliq only knows what you have recorded in it.

Affliq records and does the maths, it does not advise. How things are taxed is your tax adviser's call.