Deadline for refund of taxes from EU member states for 2020

On September 30, 2021, the deadline for Austrian entrepreneurs who want to reclaim the value added tax from the EU member states for the year 2020 (for the United Kingdom, the deadline for the year 2020 has already expired at the end of March 2021; for the value added tax amounts from January 1 to June 30, 2021 for Great Britain, the applications must be submitted by December 31, 2021). The applications must be submitted electronically via FinanzOnline. The Austrian tax administration will check the application for completeness and admissibility and forward it to the competent member state. The submission of original documents (or copies thereof) is not provided for in the electronic procedure, except that the submitting country specifically requests it. Each EU member state may require the submission of invoice copies starting from a bill amount of €1,000 (for fuel bills starting at €250).

The processing of the application should generally be completed by the refunding Member State within four months. If further information is requested, this period is extended to up to eight months. The refund period must generally cover at least three months and a maximum of one calendar year – periods of less than three months may only be requested if they represent the remainder of a calendar year (e.g. November and December). In addition to the refund period, minimum refund amounts dependent on this must also be observed. For a calendar year, €50 is considered the minimum amount, and for three months, €400 is the minimum. Although the deadline and application procedure are the same for all EU Member States, it should be noted that tax regulations regarding the type and extent of VAT refunds can regularly differ from country to country. Restrictions regularly affect, among other things, subsistence and entertainment expenses, representation costs, car expenses, etc.

In practice, it has been found that foreign authorities sometimes require certified translations of invoices and contracts, and therefore the amount to be reimbursed should always be kept in mind. Difficulties can also occasionally arise with the timely (electronic) delivery of supplementary requests or decisions.

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