Is there an obligation to submit the EÜR electronically even if the profit is small?
The Rhineland-Palatinate Tax Court has ruled that taxpayers with income from profits are required to submit their income tax return electronically to the tax office, even if they earn only minor profits from part-time work. The electronic form is mandatory if the profit exceeds 410 EUR (Rhineland-Palatinate Tax Court, 15.7.2015, 1 K 2204/13).
The case: The claimant is self-employed part-time as a photographer, author, and diving instructor. The tax office first informed him in 2011 that he was required to submit his income tax return electronically due to this self-employment. The claimant argued that the profits from his self-employed work would only be around 500 Euro per year in the future. He also fundamentally opposed the transmission of personal data via the internet, as he had already had relevant experiences with internet misuse. Even with internet banking, absolute security could not be guaranteed.
According to the tax court, the Income Tax Act requires the electronic form if the profit exceeds 410 Euro. This form was not unreasonable for the claimant. The residual risk of a hacker attack on the stored or transmitted data, remaining after all technical security options have been exhausted, must be accepted in view of the state interest in administrative simplification and cost savings.
Absolute confidentiality of data cannot be guaranteed anyway, as data stored "analogue" in paper form could also be stolen, e.g. in a burglary at home or – as reported in the media on 13.6.2015 – in burglaries into bank mailboxes. Electronic tax returns are also required for VAT, and the Federal Fiscal Court has already ruled that this is constitutional despite the "NSA affair".
Currently, the Münster Tax Court has ruled that a balance sheet may also be submitted to the tax office in paper form if the creation of the technology for data transmission would be financially too costly (judgment of 28.1.2021, 5 K 436/20 AO).
However, the Federal Fiscal Court has ruled that a financial expense of 40.54 Euro for the required electronic transmission of the balance sheet and the profit and loss account in the officially prescribed data format is also (economically) reasonable for a "micro-enterprise" (Federal Fiscal Court judgment of 21.04.2021, XI R 29/20).
Note: Employees and pensioners who are not required to submit an electronic tax return and receive expense allowances for their voluntary work up to the amount of the volunteer allowance of 840 Euro or the trainer allowance of 3.000 Euro per year may, in our opinion, continue to use the paper forms for the tax return. However, the tax offices are increasingly handling this more restrictively.
