The finance ministry has announced the rates of return applicable for 2023 under the flat-rate savings variant.
Flat returns
These are the flat rate of return for bank deposits and for debts. For other assets, the rate of return was already known. The final flat rates of return for 2023 are:
| Category | Flat rate of return |
| Bank balances | 0,92% |
| Other assets | 6,17% |
| Debts | 2,46% |
Preliminary returns
The final return for bank deposits differs from the provisional return used when the 2023 provisional income tax/national insurance contributions assessments were imposed. Namely, this used a return of 0.36%. The return for debt differs less. This was provisionally set at 2.57%.
The higher return on bank deposits/lower return on debt may result in the need for additional tax payments following the filing of the 2023 income tax return.
Under tax court
Whether this flat-rate way of calculating the income on which income tax is payable will be accepted by the courts is still uncertain. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on this in more detail in the first half of 2024. Until then, the Tax Authorities will not impose final assessments to prevent an unnecessary (new) massive flow of (pro forma) objections.
It is possible that the Supreme Court will rule that the lump-sum savings variant does not sufficiently take into account that at most the return actually earned may be taxed. If so, taxpayers can invoke this before 2023, but no more is ever taxed than the (flat-rate) income that follows from the law (the flat-rate returns shown above).