{"id":3059,"date":"2025-10-15T10:59:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T08:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gwgl-hamburg.de\/blog\/post\/lbf-nrw-geht-verstaerkt-gegen-steuerhinterziehung-mit-kryptowaehrung-vor-2\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T10:59:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T08:59:51","slug":"lbf-nrw-steps-up-action-against-tax-evasion-with-cryptocurrency-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/lbf-nrw-geht-verstaerkt-gegen-steuerhinterziehung-mit-kryptowaehrung-vor-2\/","title":{"rendered":"BFH on the tax authority's lack of knowledge in the case of tax evasion by omission"},"content":{"rendered":"

BFH on the tax authority's lack of knowledge in the case of tax evasion by omission (BFH judgement of 14.05.2025 - VI R 14\/22)<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n

The Federal Fiscal Court has dealt with the question of whose knowledge is required in the context of \u201eknowledge\u201c according to \u00a7 Section 370 para. 1 no. 2 AO<\/strong> arrives.<\/p>\n

Background<\/strong><\/p>\n

After \u00a7 Section 169 (1) sentence 1 AO<\/strong> a tax assessment is inadmissible if the assessment period has expired. The Assessment period<\/strong> for income tax according to \u00a7 Section 169 (2) sentence 1 no. 2 AO<\/strong> generally four years. It is extended to ten years if tax has been evaded and to five years if tax has been recklessly evaded (\u00a7Section 169 (2) sentence 2 AO<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

According to \u00a7 Section 170 (1) AO<\/strong> the assessment period begins at the end of the calendar year in which the tax arose. If a tax return is to be submitted, the assessment period begins at the end of the calendar year in which the tax return is submitted, but at the latest at the end of the third calendar year following the calendar year in which the tax arose (\u00a7 Section 170 (2) sentence 1 no. 1 AO<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Facts of the case<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the underlying case, married couples who were jointly assessed were subject to application assessment up to and including 2008 because only the husband earned wages. In the years in dispute, 2009 and 2010, the wife also received income from employment (tax classes III\/V). However, the case remained on file with the tax office as an application assessment. Although the electronic wage tax certificates were assigned to the tax authorities by the system, the couple did not submit any tax returns and were not requested to do so by the tax office. In 2018, the tax office determined the existence of a mandatory assessment and issued assessment notices for the years 2009 and 2010. The couple invoked the statute of limitations for assessment, while the tax office assumed an extended assessment period due to tax evasion by omission. The couple filed an appeal against this with the M\u00fcnster Fiscal Court.<\/p>\n

Case law<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tax court as the first instance initially upheld the action<\/strong>. In his opinion, the objective offence of tax evasion by omission (\u00a7 Section 370 para. 1 no. 2 AO<\/strong>) was not fulfilled because the information required for the assessment was available to the responsible processor. The tax office therefore had knowledge of the circumstances essential for the tax assessment at the relevant assessment date.<\/p>\n

The Federal Fiscal Court overturned this judgement<\/strong> and referred the matter back to the tax court for a different hearing and decision. It found that the plaintiffs were obliged to submit tax returns for the years in dispute, meaning that the regular assessment period expired on 31 December 2016 and 31 December 2017 respectively. For the assessment of \u201eknowledge\u201c within the meaning of the \u00a7Section 370 para. 1 no. 2 AO<\/strong> It depends on the person who is responsible for processing the specific tax case or who issues the tax assessment. The entire content of the paper files and electronic files relating to the case is deemed to be known to the tax authority.<\/p>\n

However, electronic data that is not automatically transferred to the paper file or electronic file is not considered known, but are only available on retrievable data repositories of the tax authority<\/strong>. This also applies if the data is linked to the tax number, as in the case in dispute. The BFH bases this restrictive attribution on the constitutional requirement of certainty of the Art. 103 para. 2 GG in conjunction with \u00a7 1 StGB<\/strong>. According to the binding findings, the plaintiffs' tax case remained stored as an application assessment; although the electronic wage tax data was assigned to the tax number, it could only be accessed via an overview and was not automatically transferred to the (electronic) case file. In view of this, there was no reason for the processor to view the data memory. Instead, the person responsible for the matter first became aware of the tax-relevant facts at the beginning of 2018 through the eData checklist sent by the Regional Tax Office.<\/p>\n

The tax court of the first instance was therefore wrong to assume that the tax office had knowledge and therefore the extension of the regular assessment period under \u00a7Section 169 para. 2 sentence 2 in conjunction with. \u00a7\u00a7370, 378 para. 1 AO<\/strong> could not be considered. In the second instance, the tax court has now made findings on the subjective elements of the offence of \u00a7Section 370 para. 1 no. 2 AO<\/strong> to meet.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, the decision shows that the imputation of knowledge depends in particular on the file-relevant information status of the responsible processing unit. Our tax consultants and specialist lawyers for tax law<\/strong> advise and support you in the assessment of knowledge and limitation issues in tax law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BFH on the tax authority's lack of knowledge in the case of tax evasion by omission (BFH judgement of 14.05.2025 - VI R 14\/22)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,22],"tags":[345,346,143,47,55],"class_list":["post-3059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allgemein","category-steuern","tag-festsetzungsfrist","tag-steuerfestsetzung","tag-steuerhinterziehung-de","tag-steuerrecht","tag-steuerstrafrecht"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwgl-hamburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}