What should I bear in mind when communicating with the tax office by email?
Matters you can handle by email
You can handle all matters by email for which a simple letter is sufficient, e.g.
- simple communications, such as answering queries or notifying a new address,
- applications for amendments to tax assessments, and
- objections to tax assessments and other administrative acts, as well as withdrawals of objections.
Matters that cannot be handled by email
- if the law requires a handwritten signature for validity (e.g. tax returns) or
- when absolute certainty about the sender's identity is required (e.g. exemption from tax confidentiality).
Necessary sender details
The relevant office can only process your request as quickly as possible if you can be clearly identified. When creating the letter with SteuerGo, please provide your name, address, and, if possible, your telephone number in addition to your email. The automatic indication of the email sender address is usually not sufficient for the tax office to adequately determine the sender. If you use the sample letters from SteuerGo, this information will be automatically added in the logged-in area!
In tax matters, you should also provide your tax office with your tax number - if you already have it.
Email addressing
You can customise the addressing of your email message. As standard, SteuerGo suggests the email of the mailroom at your local tax office for contact. The respective mailroom of the tax administration checks which office is responsible for your request and forwards your message there.
However, for reasons of equal treatment, the tax office is obliged to treat incoming emails in the same way as normal postal mail. Therefore, you cannot expect your request to be processed significantly faster by communicating via email. However, you will benefit from the elimination of postal delivery times.
Response from the tax office and exemption from tax confidentiality
Due to the lack of data security, the tax office may only reply to you by email for very general questions.
For the transmission of content subject to tax confidentiality, official secrecy, or data protection, the tax office must generally use secure communication channels such as letter, fax, or telephone.
Deviating from this, the tax office may reply by email in individual cases if the taxpayer or their tax representative expressly requests this and the tax office is exempted from tax confidentiality in this respect by written declaration in accordance with section 30 paragraph 4 number 3 of the Fiscal Code (AO).
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