Estimation authority of the tax office in the event of formal deficiencies

Formal deficiencies in the bookkeeping alone do not justify the tax office's authority to make an estimate, unless there are also factual deficiencies that suggest an estimate.

Purely formal deficiencies in the bookkeeping do not justify the tax office's authority to make an estimate, according to the Düsseldorf Tax Court. This requires additional material errors in the bookkeeping that suggest that the bookkeeping or the records are factually incorrect with a probability bordering on certainty. In the case in question, a retailer had not kept the individual digital records of its tills, but only the daily closing reports. The court was convinced that this alone would not have given the tax office the authority to make an assessment. However, because it also became clear during the audit that only the income from one of two tills had been recorded in the accounts, the tax office was nevertheless allowed to estimate higher income in the end.