Income tax: The tax office does the tax return – project in Hessen

Hessen starts a pilot project in which the tax office automatically makes a proposal to determine income tax. It does not have to be submitted to this. “The tax is now taking office: many of them should dream. We are now making it possible,” said finance minister Alexander Lorz (CDU) when the project was presented in Wiesbaden.

First of all, the service is offered around 6,000 taxpayers in the area of responsibility of the Kassel tax office, which, according to the Ministry of Finance, has already missed the deadline for submitting the income tax return for 2024. You do not have to fill out the tax return yourself, but receive a proposal from the authority, which you can accept or can also add the Elster software.

Automatic notification after four weeks

Otherwise, the tax office will create the tax assessment after a period of four weeks. However, it is still possible to submit a self -created tax return. The basis for the tax office’s proposal is, for example, data on wages, pensions and insurance companies that the tax administration already have due to the corresponding reporting requirements. From this, the authority then automatically creates a proposal to determine income tax.

Not everyone has to make tax returns

The prerequisite in the pilot project is that the respective taxpayer is obliged to submit an income tax return and is not represented or advised. In general, not every employee and not every employee are obliged to submit an income tax return.

However, if you receive wage replacement benefits such as unemployment benefit, parental allowance or short -time work allowance of more than 410 euros a year or have several employers at the same time, you have to make a tax return. Freelancers, self -employed and traders are also generally obliged to do so. As a rule, the tax return should be ready by July 31 of the following year, but there are ways to extend the deadline for it.

With the pilot project in Kassel, Hessian state government wants to relieve the citizens and increase the efficiency of the tax administration. If the test run is a success, the program should be expanded.

Federation of taxpayers: “Step in the right direction”

“The Hessian pilot project can be a step in the right direction,” said Joachim Papendick, chairman of the federal taxpayer. “The fact that this is only now being tried on a small scale shows how much Germany lags behind.” So far, the tax return in this country has been much more complex and time -consuming compared to other countries.

The German Tax Union welcomed the pilot project as an important step on the way to a modern, citizen-friendly tax administration. “While our colleagues still spend a lot of time today with the manual processing of standard cases, they could concentrate on the really complex and important cases in the event of a complete digitization,” said Federal President Florian Köbler.

“Advantages for both sides”

Hesse’s finance minister Lorz sees the next step in the pilot project on the way to an even more citizen -friendly tax administration. “What we test in this project brings advantages on both sides.” Because the authority can also save resources. Further joint steps from the federal government and the other countries are needed so that the assessment of the tax return by the authority can be implemented to a large extent.