The deadline for submitting the tax return is 30 April, and overpaid income tax amounts will be refunded beginning from 5 March, regardless of whether a tax return was submitted in the first hours after opening the system or later. Making refunds to people submitting their returns on paper will be started in mid-March.
According to Annika Oja, head of ETCB's natural persons’ services, income tax returns are mostly pre-filled based on the data known to the ETCB, but a person is responsible for the correctness of their data, and additional income earned, for example, through different platforms, must be indicated on the tax return by the person.
"If there are inaccuracies in the pre-filled data, for example, data of immovable property, the sale of which is not taxable with income tax, it should be deleted from the tax return by the person. But also, the other way around: if data of earned income is missing from the tax return, for example, income earned on platforms, rental income received, foreign income or envelope salary are not indicated on the tax return, this data must be entered by the person," explained Oja.
With the tax returns submitted this year, it is the last time to use the increased basic exemption for a child of up to 17 years old, deduct housing loan interest from taxable income and transfer unused tax incentives to spouse's tax return.
Unused tax exemptions can be transferred to spouse if the total annual income of spouses does not exceed 50,400 euros per calendar year and one of the spouses did not earn income in 2023 or his or her annual income was less than 2,160 euros. The party whose income was lower and wants to transfer their benefit to the other should fill in their tax return first. Housing loan interest can be deducted from the total income in the amount of up to 300 euros, but not more than 50% of the total taxable income earned. Increased basic exemption for children is pre-filled in the tax return of the parent who has received child allowance from the Social Insurance Board during the year.
Oja also asks customers to be understanding regarding waiting lines.
"In the first days and weeks of the income tax return period, the number of customer contacts increases in the e-services environment e-MTA, in the service bureaus and on the customer support information lines. For the declaration period, we have engaged as many qualified workers as possible to answer people's questions by phone and e-mail, as well as in the service bureaus. Despite this, longer than usual waiting lines in the bureaus and at the information lines are inevitable in the first weeks," she added.
Submission of income tax returns starts on 15 February and the submission deadline is 30 April.
