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How do I respond to a tax request for information?

How do I respond to a tax request for information?

Have you recently received a request for information from the tax authorities? How best should you respond?

Don’t panic! It’s an ordinary, commonplace procedure! What’s more, you have a period of one month from the dispatch date of the request for information from your tax office to reply. We advise you to reply by recorded delivery with acknowledgement of receipt. It’s best!

-  Do you need more than 30 days to gather the information requested? If so, ask for an extension by telephone or email. If your reasons are justified, an additional month is usually granted. It is essential to justify your request: searches to obtain copies of supporting documents, duplicates of bank statements, etc.

- What must your reply contain? Be complete and if you are missing one piece of information or another, explain clearly why this is so. You can also undertake to provide certain elements later on, why you have obtained them yourself.

- Whether you reply to the request for information by email, at the proposal of the tax official concerned, or by recorded delivery (which we recommend), all annexes and copies of documents must be clearly documented, numbered and presented in chronological order per year of income. Scrupulously provide all the information requested. There is no point in boring your inspector stiff with superfluous information. Whether you send your replies scanned or photocopied, check the quality and legibility of the elements forwarded. It’s in your own interest! You should preferably keep your originals, and also keep an electronic version of all the supporting documents you have forwarded.

And then? The tax authorities may or may not respond to your reply: either the tax on your income was correctly calculated and you will hear nothing more. Or the tax authorities consider that your tax calculation needs revising. In this case, they have to send to an adjustment notice in advance, which will again give you a period of one month. (See our article on this subject in our newsletter). Good luck!