Pre-filled tax return from 2014

Next year, for the first time, private individuals will be able to retrieve the data stored about them by the tax authorities as a pre-filled tax return.

At the beginning of 2014, the tax authorities will make it possible to view and retrieve most of the data stored by the tax authorities about taxpayers in order to facilitate the preparation of income tax returns. Under the heading "pre-filled tax return (VaSt)", the data available to the tax office for the respective assessment year will be automatically transferred to the correct fields of the tax return. This includes, in particular, the income tax data certified by the employer, certificates on the receipt of pension benefits, contributions to health and long-term care insurance and pension expenses, as well as name, address and other personal data. The scope of the data provided is to be successively expanded.

Once the taxpayer has checked and completed the information, he can then send his income tax return to the tax office. In order to retrieve their own data stored by the tax administration, taxpayers must log on to the ElsterOnline portal and authenticate themselves. Once the access procedure has been successfully completed, data can be retrieved both via tax administration services (ElsterOnlinePortal or ElsterFormular) and via the services of commercial software providers.

In addition, the taxpayer can also authorize the tax advisor to view his or her data on his or her behalf and to use it when preparing the tax return. Details on the authorization of third parties to retrieve VaSt will still be published on the Elster website. The Federal Ministry of Finance has already drafted sample authorization forms for the tax advisor. Further details about VaSt will not be known until the coming months. For example, it is not yet certain whether VaSt will really already be available for the 2013 tax return, or whether only some of the data will be retrievable for the time being.