Reader's submission: Intention to deviate from tax return regarding deduction of integration course costs
On October 1, I received a letter from the tax authorities that the deduction of the costs of the integration course that I made in the tax return in 2015 will be reversed by means of Supreme Court ruling no. 17/03158. I assume that more people have received this letter. I have filed an appeal to this effect below. Perhaps others will benefit from this as well.
Dear Mr/Mrs Rosmuller,
By means of this letter I acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 1 October last in which you indicate that you wish to further assess my tax return for the 2015 tax year. By means of this letter I would like to state that I do not agree with your intention to impose an additional assessment. First of all, I will show a timeline of how my tax return for 2015 came about and then I will indicate point by point why I do not agree with your intention.
On March 1, 2016, I and my partner submitted the tax return for 2015 with a revision on March 19, 2016 and March 21, 2016. On June 17, 2016, we received a provisional assessment for this. My tax return was definitively assessed by the tax authorities on June 29, 2018 and my partner's on July 6, 2018. In addition, my partner received an adjusted final assessment on June 26, 2019 on June 26, 2019.
Why do I disagree with the intention to deviate from my tax return for 2015 by means of an additional assessment:
on 15 December 2017, the ruling of the Supreme Court made in appendix 1 was published, as a result of which this has already been taken into account by the relevant tax inspector during the determination of our final assessments;
at the time of filing our tax return, the Supreme Court had not yet ruled on the deductibility of these costs;
Our declarations were definitively assessed on June 29, 2018, July 6, 2018 and June 26, 2019. During the final assessment of our declarations, your inspectors were already familiar with the judgment of December 15, 2017 no. 17/03158;
you base your intention on Article 16 paragraph 1 of the General State Taxes Act. Due to the point mentioned above, you cannot rely on this article since we did not file our returns in bad faith and your inspectors were aware of judgment no. 17/03158 when the final assessments were made.
I trust that I have provided sufficient argumentation by means of the above not to proceed with an additional assessment for the tax year 2015. I will appendix the judgment of the Supreme Court no. add.
Submitted by Eric
Thank you for this message and the excellent objection example. This also applies to me, about the 2016 tax return.
Conditions for making use of this are that the integration costs were incurred (and deducted) in 2016 or earlier and that the final assessment was imposed after 15 December 2017.
Incidentally, I think it's great that the tax authorities are still able to determine that deducted study costs related to integration costs. This must be indicated in the declaration program in a free text field. I can hardly imagine that this is done through manual (visual) checks.
I am very curious how the response of the tax authorities will be and what motivation they will use.
I would like to hear the result.
You have received notice from the tax inspector of his or her intention to deviate from the income tax return you filed for the 2015 tax year. This intention will then in principle result in the imposition of an additional assessment.
You have lodged an objection against this. However, that was too premature. An announced intention to deviate from a declaration is not a decision open to objection.
You can, however, express your opinion with regard to this intention. Your letter to the inspector will therefore be treated as such. You can only lodge an objection against this after you have received the additional assessment.
You submitted the relevant tax return on 1 March 2016 and subsequently revised it twice. You then received a provisional assessment on 17 June 2016, followed by a final assessment dated 29 June 2018.
In your letter to the Tax and Customs Administration you refer to the judgment of the Supreme Court, rendered on 15 December 2017 (ECLI:NL:HR:2017:3129 with case number 17/03158). However, this reference is irrelevant. Even before this judgment was rendered, the training costs stated by you in the relevant tax return were not deductible for your partner.
In order to be eligible for deduction of study/training costs, the resulting study and the costs incurred must meet the following conditions, among others (art. 6.27, paragraph 1, Income Tax Act 2001):
• The training or study must be aimed at a (future) profession;
• There must be a learning process in which knowledge is acquired under guidance or supervision.
The former condition is not met in an integration course.
Your comment about the fact that the inspector should have been aware of the said judgment before determining the definition of the assessment is therefore irrelevant.
However, something completely different is going on. You more or less already point this out by naming and appending your letter to the Tax and Customs Administration of Article 16(1) of the General State Tax Act (AWR).
The inspector has assessed your tax return and then imposed a final assessment. In exceptional cases, the inspector can then revert to an earlier position and impose a further assessment. The main reasons are:
1. There is a new fact (something that was not yet known or could not have been known to the inspector).
2. Bad faith on the part of the taxpayer.
3. There is an (obvious) typographical or computer error (and this is reasonably apparent to you).
Re 1. Your tax return contains the deduction for training costs. So there is no question of a new fact. There is an assessment error by the inspector, but this does not lead to a new fact (see art. 16, paragraph 2, letter c, AWR and Supreme Court 27 June 2014 – E:C:L:Ï:NL:HR:2014 :1528).
I assume that you have also answered the question “Name of study or training” in the tax return. And if that is not the case, the inspector should have inquired about this with you before establishing the final assessment.
Ad 2. There is also no question of bad faith: you have not deliberately concealed something in your tax return that the inspector has only now found out about. This would be the case, for example, if you wrongly failed to include foreign assets in your tax return.
Re 3. You expected, for example, a refund of € 500, but the definition of the assessment indicates an amount of € 500.000. Then there is (clearly) a typing or computer error which you would reasonably have been aware of at a glance. But this is also not the case. See in this connection the Supreme Court 10 January 2014 – E:C:L:I:NL:HR:2014:8.
CONCLUSION: the inspector has no leg to stand on with regard to imposing an additional assessment. He has missed his turn by assessing the declaration and imposing a final assessment!
That is knowledge that makes this blog so good.
Thank you Mr Lammert.
Give a thumbs up, but may also be said.