Advance sales tax return

The entrepreneur must submit a VAT return for the respective advance return period.

In principle, advance VAT returns must be submitted after the end of each calendar quarter.

However, if the VAT for the entire previous year amounts to more than EUR 9,000, the advance VAT returns must be submitted after each calendar month.

If the previous year's VAT does not exceed EUR 2,000, the tax office can exempt the entrepreneur from submitting advance VAT returns. In this case, only an annual VAT return needs to be submitted.

If there is an input tax surplus of more than EUR 9,000 for the previous calendar year, the entrepreneur can choose: Instead of the calendar quarter, they can opt for the calendar month as the pre-declaration period in order to receive an earlier refund of input tax surpluses. This decision is then binding for the entire calendar year.

Entrepreneurs must submit their advance VAT returns to the tax office electronically (paperless) with authentication. Only in exceptional cases (cases of so-called undue hardship) can the tax authorities allow advance VAT returns to continue to be submitted to the tax office using the officially prescribed form. This is particularly the case if the taxpayer cannot reasonably be expected to create the technical requirements for electronic transmission.

Authenticated transmission takes place using an electronic certificate, which you can obtain free of charge by registering with ElsterOnline.

The ElsterOnline portal is available for submitting VAT returns. However, the data can also be transmitted using corresponding commercial tax software products.

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