Employees are assigned a tax classes for the purpose of income tax deduction. If the marital status changes, the change to a different tax class may be considered.

The registration office automatically transmits the changed marital status ("married"), the date of marriage and the tax IDs of both spouses to the tax office. As a result, if both spouses reside in Germany, they automatically get assigned tax class combination IV/IV in the electronic income tax deduction items (ELStAM), with effect from the date of marriage. The primary employers are thus notified of the tax class IV as ELStAM for retrieval. You will be assigned tax class IV (and not III), even if only one of you earns an income.

As a rule, you only need to take action if, from your point of view, another tax class (e.g. III) or tax class combination (III/V or IV/IV with factor) should be applied instead of the automatically created tax class combination IV/IV.