Timely finalisation of tax assessment

A tax assessment is to be regarded as having been finalised in good time where it has been passed on to tax payer within the prescribed term for finalisation and the date it bears falls within said term.

The deadline for imposing the income tax assessment for 2009 on a tax payer who had been granted filing extension expired on the thirty-first of January 2014. The Inspector of Taxes on the eighth of January 2014 finalised the requisite details and saw to the entry thereof in the Tax and Customs Administration’s automated system. As the timing in question would have resulted in the tax assessment being dated some time in February, the Inspector prepared a second tax assessment whose date fell within the prescribed term, which was delivered to the tax payer in good time.

The case eventually came up for adjudication by the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Court of Appeal, which contended that it was the respective dates of the assessments which dictated their chronology in any scenario involving multiple assessments having been issued, from which it followed that the second tax assessment should not only be regarded as having been finalised first but, more importantly, as having been finalised in good time. The tax payer’s subsequent appeal on cassation was dismissed by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the Tax and Customs Administration had posted the second tax assessment ahead of the due date and the date of said second assessment had fallen within the prescribed term for finalisation, from which it followed that the tax assessment had indeed been finalised in good time.

Dutch version: Aanslag tijdig vastgesteld