Annual tax return filing deadlines

If you are worried about the deadlines for filing your annual tax return and can't manage to prepare it in time — there is a solution that will make your life easier.

The standard deadline is 1 May, the official date stated in the letter from the Belastingdienst.

But this is only the baseline deadline. If you submit a request for an extension (uitstel) before 1 May, the Belastingdienst automatically grants an extension until 1 September, which hundreds of thousands of people use every year. And they file their returns in June–August.

Tax consultants have a special scheme (becon-regeling); they can obtain an extension for a full year — until 1 May of the following year. That is why large tax firms basically file returns after May.

The only thing you really need to pay attention to: if you neither file the return nor request a deferral before 1 May, you may face a fine. This is an important point.

As for how quickly you receive a decision on your return — here too the correlation with how quickly you file is not so linear.

The Belastingdienst has an automated system that processes “simple” cases faster. These are situations involving:

• a standard salary (1 employer),
• rented housing,
• standard deductions,
• no investments,
• no entrepreneurship.

Processed slowly, on the other hand:

• entrepreneurs (ZZP),
• investments,
• foreign income,
• tax residents who moved during the year,
• complex family situations (divorce, children, alimony),
• purchase of real estate.

So even if you file on 1 April, if the return is complex the decision may arrive in autumn.

Also, those who have to pay extra are processed first, then those who are due a refund. The workload of the Belastingdienst and changes in its internal system also matter.

So we hope this information has reassured you a little and that shifting dates in the calendar will no longer cause you anxiety.