From March 2014, the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) will issue new tax assessments to taxpayers to clarify their actual tax burden for 2013, expressed as a percentage of gross income. The tax assessments will provide details of all the tax deductions that have been taken into consideration when calculating the tax bill. The measures are intended to increase transparency for all taxpayers in NRW.
Taxpayers who submit their returns electronically will benefit from an extended filing deadline from next year. Specifically, those who return their tax declarations electronically using the authenticated procedure will be asked to submit their returns by July 31, 2015, at the latest, instead of May 31, 2015. The authenticated procedure enables the Tax Administration to identify taxpayers by means of an electronic signature.
NRW has revealed that the federal decision to purchase so-called “tax data discs,” containing information on German residents alleged to have undeclared foreign accounts, has so far yielded a total of EUR940m (USD1.3bn) in additional revenue. As at January 2014, NRW had received 12,703 voluntary declarations of non-compliance from residents wishing to regularize their tax situation.
