This is how to find errors in the tax assessment
When you receive the tax assessment, the first glance naturally falls on the first page, which gives you the desired overview, because here you will find a summarizing short calculation. If the reimbursement or additional payment issued by the tax office deviates from the expected value, Finanztest advises you to first compare the notification with your own declaration. When recognizing the deviations, some software products such as Elster can be helpful because they highlight the discrepancies digitally. Sometimes it happens that certain special editions are not recognized. Then it is important to check carefully whether all relevant factors such as work equipment, insurance premiums and tax prepayments have been correctly taken into account. The tax office is obliged to justify all deviations in writing. If you find that the tax assessment contains errors, you can file an objection.
By when does the objection have to be submitted?
If you have compared the tax assessment very carefully with the tax return and have come to the conclusion that you have been wrongly disadvantaged at some point, you have one month to file an objection. More specifically, the period expires one month and three days from the date of the postmark. After that, the tax assessment is legally binding and therefore unalterable. The only exceptions are those notices that are issued “partially provisionally” by the tax office. This usually occurs when a final court judgment has not yet been pronounced on certain factual issues. The points affected by this in the tax assessment can then still be changed after the deadline, but the regular deadline continues to apply to everything else.
Correctly file an objection
The objection can be sent to the tax office in writing or by email, an informal letter without justification is sufficient. At a later point in time, however, it is then imperative to justify the objection and to support it with facts and evidence. The content of the objection does not have to be limited to showing errors relating to the tax return, but may also contain the addition of previously omitted tax-mitigating charges. If you come across mistakes that work in your own favor, you can be happy: According to the income tax aid association VLH, you do not have to point these out to the tax office.
Thomas Weschle / editors finanzen.net
Image sources: Gunnar Pippel / Shutterstock.com
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