Flat-rate reduction of advance tax payments made for 2019

In­iti­ally, the BMF let­ter of 24 April 2020 pro­vi­ded for a flat-rate loss car­ry­back in the case of a per­son lia­ble to in­come tax or cor­po­ra­tion tax. With the Se­cond Corona Tax As­sis­tance Act, which was publis­hed in the Fe­deral Law Ga­zette on 30 June 2020, le­gal re­gu­la­ti­ons have now been in­tro­du­ced which pro­vide for a re­duc­tion of in­come or cor­po­ra­tion tax pre­pay­ments for 2019 as a re­sult of a lump-sum loss car­ry­back sub­ject to the fol­lo­wing con­di­ti­ons:

• The tax­payer sub­mits a writ­ten or elec­tro­nic ap­pli­ca­tion to have the to­tal ta­xable in­come for 2019 re­du­ced by 30 % when as­ses­sing the ad­vance pay­ments for 2019. Howe­ver, this does not ap­ply as far as the to­tal in­come in­clu­des in­come from non-in­de­pen­dent ac­tivi­ties.
• The ad­vance pay­ments for 2020 have al­re­ady been re­du­ced to EUR 0.

Note

If a hig­her loss in 2020 can be sub­stan­tia­ted, which is to be car­ried back into the 2019 bud­get, the hig­her amount can be ta­ken into ac­count when cal­cu­la­ting the ad­vance pay­ments for 2019. The esti­ma­ted loss car­ry­back ser­ves only to sim­plify mat­ters but shall not cut off the path that has al­re­ady exis­ted up to now.

The loss car­ry­back from 2020, which is al­re­ady to be ta­ken into ac­count in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the ad­vance pay­ments for 2019, is li­mited to the ma­xi­mum amount of a loss car­ry­back of EUR 5 mil­lion (or EUR 10 mil­lion in the case of a joint as­sess­ment of spou­ses) en­vi­sa­ged for the in­vest­ment pe­riods 2020 and 2021.

If the tax rate is then fi­xed for the 2019 tax as­sess­ment pe­riod, a pro­vi­sio­nal loss car­ry­back for 2020 can be ta­ken into ac­count. This must then be ad­jus­ted to the ac­tual loss si­tua­tion in 2020, and the as­sess­ment for 2020 and the tax rate for 2019 must be ad­jus­ted ac­cor­din­gly. If this re­sults in a sub­se­quent tax pay­ment for 2019, an in­te­rest lia­bi­lity will be for­fei­ted in prin­ci­ple.