In the event you purchased a home in 2014 then a 2014 preliminary mortgage refund most likely has been created by your tax advisor, Orange Tax Services. In this refund is taken into account the purchase costs and mortgage interest. What is being delayed?
The 2014 mortgage refund is automatically converted for the same amounts by the tax office into a 2015 mortgage refund. However, in 2015 you do not have purchase costs, that already implies the converted 2015 preliminary refund cannot be correct. Moreover, this year you have the house for the full year, hence a full year WOZ value added to your income and the mortgage is paid for a full year, hence a full year deduction.
In other words, you need to update the 2015 mortgage refund if you purchased a house in 2014. Orange Tax Services will be doing this automatically for their clients.
2015 conversion done by the tax office too quickly
However, the tax office already copied 2014 into 2015 before they opened the portal for the tax advisors to update the 2015 details. The consequence is now that you receive for 2015 a statement from the tax office that is absolutely not in line with what you expected and we predicted.
Please have patience, as we are updating all the newly purchased house in 2014 into a correct 2015 preliminary refund request. You will receive from us a confirmation with the amount you can expect. In January the latest you should receive an update from the tax office.
Filing obligation of the personal income tax return remains
A common made misunderstanding about the preliminary mortgage relief is the following. Due to the fact that the tax refund is already paid into account of the tax payer every month, the tax payer does not see the necessity to file the income tax return. He or she already received the refund.
If you receive a preliminary refund you always need to file an income tax return, no exceptions. The reason is simple. The tax office trusted that the preliminary refund is correct, trust is good, checking is better, hence the tax office demands to be able to check if the refund was indeed correct. That is done in the filing of the income tax return where the preliminary refund is balanced with the actual amount. That can imply an additional refund or tax to be paid back.
If no personal income tax return is filed, the tax office claims back the refunds plus penalty
If the tax payer decides not to file a tax return, then the tax office will claim back all the money they paid to you in the concerning year. Moreover, active monthly mortgage reliefs are immediately terminated and also those amounts need to be paid back. Furthermore, a penalty for not filing the income tax return will be issued. This first penalty is EUR 226, the second penalty is EUR 948 and the thirds will be even higher. All done by the tax office to encourage you to file the income tax return. We will be glad to assist.
