VAT pre-registration (Germany)
Entrepreneurs must submit advance sales tax returns on a monthly or quarterly basis in order to report any sales tax that has already been incurred to the tax office and pay it or, in the event of a pre-tax surplus, be reimbursed. In the sales tax return after the end of a calendar year or a possibly shortened period, the sales tax prepayments already made will be offset. § 18 UStG forms the legal basis.
Sense and purpose
The sales tax is an annual tax. By submitting advance VAT returns, it is achieved, on the one hand, that the state has a lower risk of payment default and gains an interest rate advantage, and on the other hand, the entrepreneur can distribute his VAT burden more evenly over the whole year and thus avoid payment difficulties at the beginning of the following year. Conversely, the entrepreneur has an interest advantage with input tax refunds.
Period, deadline and extension of the deadline
The submission period for the advance VAT return is based on the previous year's VAT payable. The duty to pay is determined by the tax office ; if the submission period changes, the entrepreneur will receive a notification. Basically, the pre-registration period is the calendar quarter. However, if the previous year's sales tax payable is not more than € 1,000, the tax office can exempt the entrepreneur from the obligation to submit advance notifications and make advance payments for the following calendar year. If the previous year's sales tax payable was more than € 7,500.00, the sales tax return must be made monthly in the following year. Newly founded companies must always submit monthly advance notifications for the first two years ( Section 18 (2) UStG).
If the input tax surplus is more than € 7,500, the entrepreneur can voluntarily submit monthly advance notifications. With the exception of this regulation, the submission period is not freely selectable ( § 18 para. 2a UStG).
The pre-registration must be submitted to the responsible tax office by the 10th day after the pre-registration period has expired. The pre-registration for January must be submitted by February 10th at the latest.
A permanent extension of the deadline can be granted upon request , so that the deadline for submitting a pre-registration is extended by one month. The pre-registration for January does not have to be submitted until March 10th. The application for a permanent extension does not require a justification and is usually approved by the tax office without any problems. If a long-term extension has been approved, a special advance payment of 1/11 of the sum of the advance payments of the previous year must be made in the event of a monthly registration requirement; In the case of newly founded companies, the special advance payment is based on the expected sales in the year of establishment and in the following year on the total of the previous year's sales extrapolated to a calendar year. In the pre-registration for December, this special advance payment will then be taken into account. A permanent extension of the deadline is also possible for the quarterly pre-registration; no special advance payment has to be made here.
shape
The taxpayer has to calculate the VAT payable or the reimbursement himself ( self assessment tax ), indicate in a VAT advance notification, submit this to the tax office and pay any VAT payable in due time. Due to the self-calculated tax, the sales tax is a registration tax ( Section 150 (1) sentence 3 AO). It thus corresponds in essence to a self-assessment tax. The submission of the sales tax advance notification is equivalent to a tax assessment subject to review ( § 168 sentence 1 AO). If the tax registration leads to a reimbursement or a reduction in a tax that has already been paid, it is only equivalent to tax assessment if the competent tax authority agrees ( § 168 sentence 2 AO).
By 2004, the transmission of the data was performed using a reporting form on paper, since 2005 the appointment as "is El ektronische St your he clarification" about the system ELSTER submitted online. The ELSTER program is available free of charge. In addition to the ELSTER program, which is published by the tax authorities, there are a number of other programs that take over the transmission via an ELSTER interface. In addition to the Elster process, various providers can also transmit the data to the financial administration via their own data centers, e.g. B. DATEV or ADDISON. Transmission online was also possible years before the ELSTER process was introduced. The basis for this was the "Ordinance on the submission of tax notifications on machine-usable data carriers and via remote data transmission" (Tax Notification Data Transmission Ordinance - StADÜV of October 21, 1998).
Since January 1, 2013, the electronic transmission must be authenticated.
If it is not possible to submit the tax return electronically, a VAT advance return can still be submitted in paper form under certain conditions (hardship case).
calculation
The general provisions of the Value Added Tax Act apply to advance VAT registrations .
There are two options for paying sales tax, target and actual taxation. In the case of debit taxation, sales tax is due as soon as the service has been provided or a down payment has been made ( Section 13 Paragraph 1 No. 1a UStG). The billing is not important. In the case of actual taxation, which can be applied for if the turnover falls below certain limits, the turnover tax does not have to be paid until the invoice has been paid. This regulation brings an interest rate advantage for the entrepreneur.
The input tax is deductible when the service has been provided and the invoice is available. The actual payment is not important. Example: The entrepreneur receives an office chair delivered in January and the invoice for it in February. This is paid in March. The input tax is deductible in February because the service has been provided and the invoice is available.
An exception applies to down payments: input tax is deductible if the down payment invoice is available and the payment has been made.
Special case for foreign companies
For companies from non-EU countries (“ third countries ”) who provide other services electronically (for example downloads), the special regulation of Section 18 (4c) of the UStG applies . Before starting the activity, the entrepreneur can register in a single EU member state. He pays the entire sales tax to this freely selectable country that he owes to the EU countries. For these entrepreneurs, there is an extended deadline until the 20th of the following month.
See also
- Fichier d'Audit Informatisé AED , for the situation in Luxembourg
Web links
- Pre-printed VAT returns for the current year and previous year as PDF files
- Homepage of ELSTER (ELSTERWEB)
