What To Do In The Event Of A Tax Audit?
Tax Audit
When the tax office registers their visit for a tax audit, almost everyone: gets nervous. With targeted preparation and a little detailed knowledge, you can generally face the tax office’s tax audit with calm – and even influence the result to your advantage. Here you can find out how best to prepare for the tax audit, which types of tax are audited by whom – and which tricks and methods tax auditors work with.
What Is A Tax Audit?
By definition, it’s control carried out by the tax office in the field, and the bookkeeping review serves taxpayers and companies. The tax audit is mainly used in companies and freelancers, and self-employed persons, in exceptional cases also by private individuals. The aim is to assess the circumstances of taxpayers. The tax audit is subject to strict guidelines because it represents a severe interference with the person’s rights to be audited.
The Tax Audit Regulations (Legal Basis)
This is a general Administrative regulation which are the rules for both organizations well as for Carrying out a tax audit. It also contains guidelines for external audits – particularly concerning the discretionary provisions. All areas of the tax audit are legally regulated by the Tax auditing regulations regulated by the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Who Can Be Examined?
The tax office checks companies depending on various criteria. However, the most important factor for the probability (or frequency) of a tax audit is the size classes of companies. If a company is classified as a large company by the tax office, external audits usually take place regularly:
However, companies that are not registered as large companies at the tax office can also be checked for the following reasons:
- Abnormality: The clerk in the tax office who processes the tax returns has doubts about the correctness of the declared data, or specific issues are so complicated that they cannot be assessed from your desk.
- Random principle: Some cases also end up randomly on the desk of an auditor. The aim is to ensure that every company – regardless of the size class – must always expect to be audited.
Reasons For The Tax Audit
Clerks at the tax office carefully check which company is eligible for a tax audit. There must be a specific suspicion that justifies the field audit. An abnormality in one year does not usually lead to an examination. However, if these accumulate, caution is required.
- Above all, this includes sales, profit, and costs inconsistencies.
- It is also crucial whether these figures match the previous year’s figures and the guide values for companies of the same size and industry.
- High back payments for past tax audits and an increase in assets without the necessary income or strong fluctuations in sales for no reason make clerks sit up and take notice.
As always in life, the overall impression also counts: Tidy documents and receipts make a good impression, as does a clear list of the figures, making it easy to compare previous years. A tax audit is often forgotten after a business end or de-registration. The tax office may well happen to carry out a tax audit after an operational cessation. Despite the business being closed, there may still be outstanding payments. It is checked whether all taxes have been carried out.
