Pre-filled tax return (tax consultants and income tax assistance associations)
What is the pre-filled tax return?
The pre-filled tax return is a free electronic service offered by the tax administration. It is designed to make it easier for you or your client to prepare your income tax return by displaying the personal information stored by the tax authorities. Once the data has been checked, it can be automatically transferred to the fields of the income tax return.
You will be provided with the following data and certificates stored by the tax authorities for the last 4 years:
- Master data stored with the tax authorities (name, address, bank details, religion)
- Income tax certificates sent by the employer
- Wage replacement benefits (e.g. unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, parental benefit)
- Notifications regarding the receipt of pension benefits
- Contributions to health and long-term care insurance
- Pension expenses (for example Riester or Rürup contracts)
- Subsidies and reimbursements from authorities / public bodies (e.g. subsidy for health insurance)
- Contributions for capital-forming benefits (VWL / VL)
- Investment income with exemption order
Due to the statutory transmission deadlines, much of the data is not available immediately on January 1, but only at the end of February. The data can therefore only be made available to you or your client for retrieval after transmission. The data is available for retrieval for four years and is deleted after this time.
Access is possible around the clock, seven days a week and can be repeated even after the respective income tax return has been submitted.
If the data is to be used in the tax form, it can be transferred unchanged or changed or deleted manually by input. In the case of subsequent electronic transmission, the tax administration cannot trace whether and to what extent retrieved data has been used or re-entered. As the tax authorities have no knowledge of the number and completeness of the data to be transmitted to them (e.g. income tax certificates from several employers for one tax case), it remains the responsibility of you or your client / member to check the data in the tax return for completeness and accuracy and to make any necessary changes and additions, even when using the pre-filled tax return.
You can only see what has been transmitted to the tax authorities by your employer or your insurance company, for example. In the event of incorrect or incomplete data, please contact the relevant data provider directly.
The pre-filled tax return is not an assessment proposal, but an information option with an additional completion aid. The introduction of the pre-filled tax return will therefore not reduce the need for tax advice. Rather, the tax advisory professions can use the Service to inform themselves about the data available to the tax office before the tax return is prepared and correct incorrect information in advance by contacting the data provider (e.g. employer, health insurance company). By being aware of the electronic data available to the tax authorities, subsequent correction work in the office can be avoided.
Access to your client's data at the tax authorities is of course only possible subject to tax confidentiality. The client must therefore authorize you to do so.
Authorization management using a proxy database
The power of attorney database project was agreed in joint discussions between the chambers of tax advisors and the tax administration.
By recording the power of attorney associated with the respective client relationship in a fee-based database and transmitting the necessary information fully electronically to the tax administration, the members of the chambers of tax consultants are granted access to the client's data on the basis of the presumption of power of attorney in accordance with AEAO No. 1 to Section 80 without the client's renewed consent.
A corresponding BMF letter was issued on this topic on October 10, 2013, in which the sample power of attorney was published.
Use of the pre-filled tax return without using the proxy database
If you do not participate in the proxy database, you can of course still use the pre-filled tax return service. The prerequisite for this is that you are registered with Mein ELSTER using your organization tax number in conjunction with a security stick or signature card. You can register for data retrieval for yourself and your clients here. You can register for data retrieval with Mein ELSTER or with commercial software.
If your client is registered with Mein ELSTER, this process can be carried out fully electronically. In this case, your client will be informed about your application in Mein ELSTER and asked for their consent. The prerequisite for this is that your client has registered with their identification number.
If your client does not have their own access to Mein ELSTER, they will receive a letter by post informing them of your application. This letter also contains the so-called activation code with the note that this must be passed on to you as the applicant. You can then use this activation code to activate access to your client's data. If the activation is not carried out within 90 days, you must submit a new authorization request for the client. A new activation code will then be sent to the client.
Permitted number of data retriever to data owner relationships
There is a restriction on the possible number of requests per data retriever for data owners. There is no restriction for the other direction of the relationship, i.e. certificates of a data owner can be retrieved by an unlimited number of data retrievers.
| Registration feature of the data retriever | Type of Logins | Maximum number of requests from data retrievers for data owners |
|---|---|---|
| Identification number | Certificate file | 20 |
| Identification number | Security stick | 20 |
| Identification number | Signature card | 20 |
| Organization registration | Certificate file | not supported |
| Organization registration | Security stick | unlimited |
| Organization registration | Signature card | unlimited |
A prerequisite for using the pre-filled tax return is that you are registered with Mein ELSTER with your organization certificate. This requires registration with a security stick or signature card. Since January 2014, you can register here to retrieve your own data or the data of your member. You can register for data retrieval with Mein ELSTER or with commercial software.
The following procedure is suggested for decentrally organized income tax assistance associations: The association registers with its organizational tax number for each advice centre with a security stick. It then issues the registered security sticks to the advice centers. This gives the association the option of blocking the security stick in the event of loss via a user name and security query.
Access by employees in the advice centre should then be coordinated via the tax software used.
The following procedure is recommended for centrally organized income tax assistance associations: Registration should be carried out by the computer center using the association's organizational tax number. The computer center then distributes the document data to the advice centers. The association board is responsible for the data retrieval, even in the case of decentralized data storage.
Access to your member's data is of course only possible subject to tax confidentiality. You must therefore be authorized to do so by the member. You can already submit the necessary request to retrieve your member's data via Mein ELSTER or using commercial software. This request must then be approved by your member.
If your member is registered with Mein ELSTER, this process can be carried out fully electronically. In this case, your member will be informed about your application in Mein ELSTER and asked for approval. The prerequisite for this is that your member has registered with their identification number.
If your member does not have their own access to Mein ELSTER, they will receive a letter by post informing them of your application. This letter also contains the so-called activation code with the information that this must be passed on to you as the applicant. You can then use this activation code to activate access to your member's data. If the activation does not take place within 90 days, you must submit a new authorization request for the member. A new activation code will then be sent to the member.