For the 2016 tax year too, the Tax and Customs Administration will already complete part of your income tax return for you. This is known as VIA: the pre-filled tax return. This note is also available in PDF.
Collection
As in 2015, VWGNijhof can retrieve your VIA data for 2016 from the Tax Office. You will need to authorise us to do this. You must do this every year.
Authorisation
We have asked the Tax and Customs Administration to send you the authorisation form. The Tax and Customs Administration will send you a letter containing a verification code. By forwarding this letter to us, you authorise us to download your VIA details from the Tax and Customs Administration and to use those details when preparing your 2016 income tax return.
VIA data
Unfortunately, the VIA does not yet contain all the information needed to complete a full and accurate income tax return. Furthermore, the VIA data is not always correct.
The Tax and Customs Administration – with the tax court following in its footsteps – insists that the responsibility for submitting a timely, accurate and complete tax return lies entirely with the taxpayer; with you. This applies even if you use the information from the VIA.
It is therefore advisable to check the VIA data (or have it checked) and, where necessary, to correct and supplement it. An incorrect and/or incomplete return may result in substantial administrative fines being imposed by the Tax and Customs Administration.
The VIA data contains, in particular, the following information.
- Information about your wages and/or benefit(s), provided by your employer(s) and benefit agency(ies).
- The WOZ value of your home; provided by your local council.
- The details of your mortgage loan(s).
- The balances of your bank accounts.
- A statement of the value of your securities account(s).
- The provisional tax assessments issued by the Tax and Customs Administration.
You will need to add any other details yourself (or have them added). An overview of the details that may be relevant to your income tax return can be found in the article “Collecting documents for the 2016 income tax return”, in the ‘News’ section of our website (vwg.nl). We would, of course, be happy to send you this overview by email or post if you wish.
Our advice
- Please send us the letter from the Tax and Customs Administration containing the verification code for downloading the VIA data (please don’t wait too long to do this: we need to be able to activate your authorisation in good time).
- But please also gather all the information to be included in your tax return, so that we can check the VIA data and fill in any missing information.
- Please contact us if you have any questions or if anything is unclear.
The purpose of this note is to outline a scheme. For the sake of readability, matters have therefore been simplified. VWGNijhof accountants and tax consultants is therefore not liable for the consequences of actions taken or not taken as a result of this memorandum.