Tax identificationnumber

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Letter from the Federal Central Tax Office in which the personal identification number is communicated

The tax identification number (IdNr. Or Tax-IdNr.) Is a nationwide and permanent eleven-digit identification number of citizens registered in Germany for tax purposes .

The TIN (Tax Identification Number) will also be introduced in other European countries. Legal basis for this is the Savings Directive , which in Germany with the Interest Information Regulation was implemented.

Introduction of the identification number

The identification number was introduced on July 1, 2007. In order to implement this, every residents' registration office sent the BZSt every citizen listed in the register at the end of June 30, 2007 . With this first print, no identification number has yet been assigned, just a provisional processing feature. On October 1, 2007, the comparison of the data began; a filtering was carried out with the aim of determining duplicates . After consulting with the registration office, these duplicates were then removed. This process took significantly longer than planned. By the end of 2008, the taxpayer was informed of the IdNr in a letter from the BZSt. The taxpayers also received an overview of their stored data. The number must be used for all applications, declarations or notifications to the tax authorities.

Validity, issue and determination

The identification number is valid for life. It is allocated by the Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt). Children receive it shortly after their birth, and immigrants when they first register in Germany.

If the identification number is no longer known, it can be requested from the BZSt using a web form. They can also be found on the income tax assessment and on the income tax receipt. Institutions obliged to use the identification number can also be consulted without having to contact an authority. Since 2018, credit institutions have had to record the account data together with the tax identification number. This could, for example , be viewed in the context of online banking , mostly in the "Exemption order" section.

Use of the data

The identification number changes neither with a change of location nor with a change of the responsible tax office . The data is only deleted when it is no longer required by the authorities, but no later than 20 years after the taxpayer's death.

Section 139b (2) of the Tax Code (AO) contains express restrictions on the collection and use of the identification number:

  • The tax authorities may only collect and use the identification number if this is necessary to fulfill their statutory tasks or if a legal provision expressly permits or orders the collection or use of the identification number.
  • Bodies other than the tax authorities, whether public or non-public, may only collect or use the identification number if this is necessary for data transfers between them and the tax authorities or if a legal provision expressly permits or orders the collection or use of the identification number. This applies e.g. B. for employers with the wage tax data of the employees and with banks for the interest withholding tax or with certain transfers between securities accounts . In addition, these bodies may only sort their files according to the identification number or make them accessible for access to the extent that this is necessary for regular data transfers between them and the tax authorities.
  • For every account connection existing after January 1, 2018, the bank must record the identification number of the account holder and each other person entitled to dispose of it ( Section 154 (2a) No. 1 AO). If the customer does not provide the number of an existing bank account, it must be obtained from the Federal Central Tax Office using an automated procedure ( Section 26 Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Introductory Act to the Tax Code).

A violation of the restrictions on the collection and use of the identification number constitutes an administrative offense that can be punished with a fine of up to ten thousand euros ( Section 383a AO).

With the introduction of the identification number, an indirect comparison of the population registers was carried out (determination and removal of duplicates), i.e. H. In future, a person with the same data can only be registered with a registration authority with main residence.

The exchange of data between the registration offices and the Federal Central Tax Office takes place according to OSCI-XMeld via OSCI Transport .

According to the economic stimulus package of June 2020, a draft law is to be presented in the summer “which, in a first step, opens up the area of ​​registers relevant to the implementation of the Online Access Act [sic] with the tax ID as a cross-administrative ID number. In order to meet the highest data protection requirements, the cross-register data exchange should not take place directly between the two authorities, but always via a third party as an additional security. "" In the case of a legally regulated data exchange of data of a certain person between two authorities, in future The tax identification number should be used. […] The data exchange should not take place directly between two authorities, but always via a third party as an additional security. It is currently being examined how this determination can be implemented. [...] The information stored in the decentralized registers is currently not brought together at a central point, rather the decentralized register management is retained. "

Goal setting

The justification for the law states that the tax authorities must be organizationally and technically capable of performing the permissible checks efficiently. So far, an evaluation of tax-relevant information has not been carried out in many cases because the existing information could not be assigned. In addition, the number - according to the legal justification - makes a significant contribution to simplifying the taxation procedure, reducing bureaucracy and increasing the transparency of the taxation procedure. Ultimately, the aim of the measure is that all taxpayers are actually burdened equally when enforcing the tax laws.

The identification number simplifies the electronic data transmission process for citizens and provides new control options for the tax authorities. So z. For example, German investors will in future submit the identification number for foreign accounts. In addition, the information collected in the central allowance office for retirement assets is also sent to the tax offices. This enables them to ask pensioners who may be taxable from 2005 to submit a tax return .

precursor

PKZ-GDR

The personal identification number introduced in the GDR on January 1, 1970 is now being reborn in the West German identification number. In Austria, Sweden, Iceland, Poland and some other countries there are personal identification numbers that enable the unambiguous identification of each person and thus a considerable reduction in the administrative burden.

PKZ-BRD

The Federal Republic of Germany planned to introduce a personal identification number ( PKZ ). For example, it was planned with the Federal Registration Act from 1973 to introduce a uniform PKZ for every German and for all foreigners recorded in the central register of foreigners or foreigners entitled to compensation living abroad in order to rationalize administrative processes.

Before that, there was already a national insurance number according to the Social Security Code . There was also a personal identification number from the military pass according to the same system. These numbers were not taken into account for reasons of legal systematics and because of the lack of a legal basis. There were no technical reasons.

The project of a personal identification number was rejected because the Legal Committee of the German Bundestag determined in 1976 that "the development, introduction and use of numbering systems that enable uniform numbering of the population within the scope of this law is inadmissible due to the lack of a legal basis". This finding was based on the microcensus judgment of the BVerfG of 1969, BVerfGE 27, 1 - microcensus . July 16, 1969.

Structure of the identification number

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The identification number consists of eleven digits. The first ten digits of the identification number contain exactly two digits and another digit not at all (from 2016 a triple occurring digit is also possible, correspondingly then two digits not at all), the other eight (from 2016: also seven) digits each exactly easy. The first digit cannot be 0 . The eleventh digit, the check digit , is calculated from the first ten digits of the sequence as follows: 

Ziffernfolge : array[1..10] of 0..9;

Produkt := 0;
for Stelle := 1 to 10 do
begin
  Summe := (Ziffernfolge[Stelle] + Produkt) mod 10;
  if Summe = 0 then Summe := 10;
  Produkt := (Summe * 2) mod 11;
end;
Prüfziffer := 11 - Produkt;
if Prüfziffer = 10 then Prüfziffer := 0;

Section 139b of the Tax Code determines in paragraph 1, sentence 2: "Each identification number may only be issued once." This clearly leads to personal identification; see the following section (criticism).

Criticism and jurisprudence

As a result of various objections from agents, interested parties and plaintiffs (see below), since the microcensus ruling of the BVerfG in 1973, no inference from the tax identification number to the person is permissible and therefore impossible. Integrated IT processing of tax cases and correspondence with the tax offices is therefore also not possible.

For different types of tax there are additional tax numbers in the structure of the previous tax number without a check digit and in different lengths. The Federal Tax Office number (BUFA number) is used in abbreviated form depending on the federal state. For example, the tax office number used does not have to match that of the issuing tax office for sales tax.

In 2013, the federal government confirmed that by December 1, 2013, in up to 164,000 cases, several identification numbers could have been accidentally assigned to a single citizen or the same identification number to several citizens at the same time. This fact harbored the risk of incorrect taxation of income from employment in the wage tax deduction procedure. For the taxpayers concerned, this could lead to improper additional charges or inconsistent charges. In order to guarantee the uniqueness of the assignment, cases of data mixing or multiple entries were corrected by closing the redundant tax identification numbers.

All personal information is stored for the identification number: name (s), address (es), gender, date and place of birth and the responsible tax office. The legal basis is § 139b Tax Code and the related ordinance ( § 1 STIdV).

The then Federal Commissioner for Data Protection , Peter Schaar , feared that the identification number, like the Italian Codice Fiscale, could become a general personal identifier that goes far beyond tax matters .

For the introduction of the identification number, the then Federal Minister of Finance Peer Steinbrück was awarded the negative Big Brother Award in the Politics category in October 2007 . Furthermore, the constitutional conformity of the identification number is disputed by some critics.

The Humanist Union also sees the national identification number as a non-constitutional personal identification number and on August 20, 2008 brought an action with the Cologne Regional Court. At least three other lawsuits have so far become public. The lawsuits (Az. 2 K 2822/08 FG Köln et al.) Were, however, initially dismissed despite constitutional concerns of the court at the IdNr, because the tax court must be clearly unconstitutional in order to submit a lawsuit to the Federal Constitutional Court.

In another, parallel procedure, the Federal Fiscal Court decided that the allocation of the identification number and the associated data storage is in particular compatible with the right to informational self-determination . The Federal Ministry of Finance rejected the objections on July 22, 2013 with regard to this BFH judgment in a general ruling .

Further identification numbers

Every taxpayer will continue to receive (2016) tax assessments for property tax or sales tax with different tax numbers for each tax case without reference to their tax identification number.

The business identification number for self-employed persons , legal entities and associations of persons is expected to be introduced as a further number from 2021 (see Section 139c  AO ).

In addition, the sales tax identification number has been in existence since 1993 (introduction of the European internal market ) , which companies need to participate in goods and services in the European Union (VAT-free) . This is not required in Germany; formally, it is sufficient to state the sales tax number.

Web links

Wiktionary: Tax identification number  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Designation according to regulation
  2. ↑ Tax identification number allocation. Retrieved on August 3, 2020 : "Every newborn child and every new citizen is automatically assigned a tax identification number when they first register in Germany."
  3. ↑ https://www.bzst.de/DE/Privathaben/SteuerlicheIdentifikationnummer/Mitteilung_IdNr/mitteilung_IdNr_node.html
  4. ↑ BZSt - tax identification number. Retrieved August 18, 2019 .
  5. ↑ https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Standardartikel/Themen/Schlaglichter/Konjendungpaket/2020-06-03-eckpunktepapier.pdf
  6. ↑ https://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/19/202/1920288.pdf
  7. ↑ Information from the Icelandic registration office about the identification number (kennitala) (Engl.). Retrieved August 21, 2014 .
  8. ↑ See Steinmüller, Wilhelm: EDV und Recht: Einf. In d. Legal informatics . In: Legal worksheets: JA special issue . tape 6 . Schweitzer, Berlin 1970, p. 78 .
  9. ↑ Bavarian State Office for Taxes: Checking the tax and tax identification number
  10. ↑ ZIVIT (PDF; 20 kB): Check digit calculation for the IdNr according to § 139b AO
  11. ↑ Tax office search and GemFa XML export file. In: bzst.de. BZSt portal, accessed on March 17, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Tax number - Treasury creates doppelgangers - Economy - Süddeutsche.de. Retrieved February 13, 2014 .
  13. ↑ Multiple tax identification numbers, response of the federal government to a small inquiry, BT-Drucksache 18/929 from March 26, 2014
  14. ↑ Ordinance on the allocation of tax identification numbers (Tax Identification Number Ordinance - StIdV) of November 28, 2006 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 2726 )
  15. ↑ See Schaar, Peter: The end of privacy. The way to the surveillance society . C. Bertelsmann, Munich 2007, p. 172 .
  16. ^ Judgment on tax ID , wochenblatt.de
  17. ↑ BFH, judgment of January 18, 2012 Az. II R 49/10
  18. ↑ General order of the Federal Ministry of Finance to reject the objections raised because of the allocation of the tax identification number (§ 139b AO) from July 22, 2013. ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundesfinanzministerium.de