Tuesday, May 4th of the week today is the first deadline for employees in the 2020 tax return. The other deadlines are May 11 and May 18. In addition, individual taxpayers who have received a property tax decision must make any adjustments by May 4, 2021, and the property tax payment dates are August 6 and October 6.
About 4.9 million completed tax returns were sent to individual taxpayers during the spring. As a result, some 2.1 million wage earners and 1.2 million pensioners received their pre-filled returns by early April.
Last year, in the spring of 2020, about 1.3 million taxpayers made additions or corrections to their tax returns. This year, this number is likely to increase due to the exceptional circumstances caused by the pandemic. As many wage earners began working from home from March 2020, their annual commuting costs fell. On the other hand, many of them can now claim other deductions based on working from home. Those who continue to travel to work by public transport may claim a new deduction from face masks.
– Changes in taxes and deductions related to Covid-19 mostly affect employees. However, up to 95% of them use MyTax to file their tax returns. So we assume that there are no configurations in tax offices for filing tax returns. By Nilla HietamäkiTax Administration Communications Manager, people now want to learn from tax returns and claim deductions properly
The cost of working from home is part of the cost of production and can be reduced
In the spring of 2020, an estimated one million employees started working remotely, some of them throughout the year. If telework incurs costs, they fall into the category of “deductible costs to generate income.”
The tax administration automatically deducts € 750 from all employees’ income. Similarly, if your total revenue to generate revenue last year is less than $ 750, you don’t need to make any information about it.
Public transport commuters receive tax deductions from face masks
Expenses for your daily trip between home and work are deductible only to the extent that you actually paid them in 2020. For many employees, the actual amount of these expenses is now lower than in previous years. This means that they need to make some corrections to their pre-filled tax return information so that only actual expenses are reported.
Your own liability threshold for business trip expenses is € 750. Only report business trip expenses in the tax return if they were more than 750 euros.
If you used a face mask when traveling by public transportation and purchased the masks yourself, you can deduct them as part of your commute expenses. However, if the masks are provided by your employer, they do not entitle you to deductions.
The tax deduction is € 2 per day when you made a trip that is eligible for a face mask cost deduction. Your trip must be later than August 13, 2020, when THL, the Department of Health and Welfare, issued a public transport face mask recommendation.
Source: Tax Administration
Source: The Nordic Page
