Die Firma zieht die Lohnsteuer automatisch ab.

Because the verb here is abziehen, which is a separable verb.

• Full infinitive: abziehen
• In a normal main clause, German splits it:
  • the conjugated part goes to position 2: zieht
  • the prefix goes to the end: ab

So:

• Die Firma zieht die Lohnsteuer automatisch ab.

But in the infinitive, it stays together:

• Die Firma muss die Lohnsteuer automatisch abziehen.

This is a very common German pattern.

Here abziehen means to deduct or to withhold.

In payroll or tax language, etwas abziehen often means taking money away from a payment before the employee receives it.

So in this sentence, the company is deducting the wage tax automatically from the pay.

Because the subject is die Firma, which is grammatically third person singular: the company.

The present-tense forms of ziehen are:

• ich ziehe
• du ziehst
• er/sie/es zieht
• wir ziehen
• ihr zieht
• sie/Sie ziehen

Since die Firma = she/it grammatically, the correct form is zieht.

Because both nouns are feminine in German.

• die Firma = the company
• die Lohnsteuer = the wage tax / payroll tax

But the two die forms are not doing exactly the same job:

• Die Firma is nominative because it is the subject.
• die Lohnsteuer is accusative because it is the direct object.

For feminine nouns, the definite article is die in both nominative and accusative, so the form looks the same.

Because it is the thing being deducted.

Ask yourself:

• Who is doing the action? → die Firma
• What is being deducted? → die Lohnsteuer

That makes die Firma the subject and die Lohnsteuer the direct object.

With feminine nouns, nominative die and accusative die are identical, so you identify the object mainly by meaning and sentence structure.

Lohnsteuer is the tax deducted from an employee’s wages or salary by the employer.

It is a compound noun:

• Lohn = wages / pay
• Steuer = tax

So literally it is wage tax. In practice, it refers to the tax that is withheld directly from payroll.

Because ab belongs to the separable verb abziehen, and in a main clause the prefix normally comes at the very end.

So the sentence frame is:

• Die Firma zieht ... ab.

Other elements, like objects or adverbs, usually go in the middle field:

• Die Firma zieht die Lohnsteuer automatisch ab.

That means automatisch naturally comes before the final ab.

Yes. That is also correct.

Both are possible:

• Die Firma zieht die Lohnsteuer automatisch ab.
• Die Firma zieht automatisch die Lohnsteuer ab.

The difference is mainly one of emphasis and flow.

• Putting automatisch later can make it feel like an extra detail about the action.
• Putting automatisch earlier can highlight the manner a bit sooner.

German word order in the middle of the sentence is flexible, though not random.

No, it does not always have to be first.

German main clauses follow the verb-second rule. That means the conjugated verb must be in the second position, but the first position can be filled by different elements.

So you can say:

• Die Firma zieht die Lohnsteuer automatisch ab.
• Automatisch zieht die Firma die Lohnsteuer ab.
• Die Lohnsteuer zieht die Firma automatisch ab.
  This is grammatically possible, but it sounds marked because it emphasizes die Lohnsteuer.

The most neutral version is the original one, with the subject first.

The dictionary form is abziehen.

When you look up separable verbs, you usually look for the full infinitive, not just the stem:

• not ziehen in this meaning
• but abziehen

That is important because ziehen by itself often means to pull or to move, while abziehen has meanings like to deduct, to pull off, or to remove, depending on context.

It is in the present tense: Präsens.

• Die Firma zieht die Lohnsteuer automatisch ab.

In German, the present tense is often used not only for what is happening right now, but also for regular or habitual actions. Here it means something like:

• the company deducts the wage tax automatically
• the company automatically deducts the wage tax

So it describes a normal process or routine.

Yes, Firma commonly means company or business.

A useful thing to remember is that it is grammatically feminine:

• die Firma

Even though English speakers may think of a company as it, in German you use the grammatical gender for agreement:

• Die Firma zieht ...
• later you could refer back to it with sie.

So die Firma is grammatically treated as feminine, not neuter.

No. It means the company deducts the tax from the employee’s pay.

German does not need to say vom Lohn or vom Gehalt here if the context is payroll, because Lohnsteuer abziehen is a standard expression. The meaning is understood.

If you wanted to make it more explicit, you could say something like:

• Die Firma zieht die Lohnsteuer direkt vom Lohn ab.

But the original sentence is completely natural and standard.