tax assessment
December 3, 2009 | 15,00 EUR | answered by Dipl.BW/SB Ulrich Stiller
Hello!
We moved from Hesse to North Rhine-Westphalia in August, submitted our taxes at a tax office in NRW, and received the notice three weeks ago.
When we called today to inquire about when we could expect the refund, the man from the tax office said that the credit would not be paid out to us before January 4, 2010, as there was a hold on it. This is because all of our tax documents had to be manually entered, and the lady responsible for this said she would probably be able to complete it by January 4, 2010.
My question is, is it legal for them to hold onto the money for so long? Can we demand interest since the payout is taking so long?
There was no mention of this delay in the tax notice we received three weeks ago.
The tax office in Hesse sent our tax documents to NRW at the beginning of September, which means that the lady would need five months to enter all the taxes.
Thank you for your response.
Dear consultant,
Thank you for your inquiry, which I would like to answer based on your information and in light of your efforts as follows:
Interest will not be considered yet due to the waiting period if it is an income tax refund for the year 2008. Interest generally starts 15 months after the end of the calendar year in which the tax was incurred, the so-called waiting period (§ 233a para. 2 sentence 1 AO). The waiting period has not yet expired in your case.
Normally, the tax office transfers the tax refund claim within 2-5 days from the receipt of the income tax assessment, unless there are tax debts that can be offset against the refund claim. Since you have already received the tax assessment, all the data has been entered electronically, so the argument about manual data entry does not apply.
Contact the department head of the clerk and inquire about the actual reason for the delayed payment, as you already have the tax assessment. Express your confusion to the department head about the behavior of the tax office.
Best regards,
Ulrich Stiller
Tax consultant
