Have you received a letter from the tax authorities several days in a row in the past few weeks? You’re not the only one. For example, one day this concerns a letter with your assessment and the next day whether you want it automatically deducted from your account. The Tax and Customs Administration acknowledges that this happens, but says that it is because most systems are not linked to each other and therefore work side by side. Digitization of that post is for later.
An example from practice: person X receives a letter on Monday with the tax assessment that he or she could previously view online, on Tuesday there will be a letter for motor vehicle tax, on Wednesday that person will receive a letter to report that the same motor vehicle tax can also be debited automatically. and on Thursday he or she will finally be asked to provide the account number.
A number of those messages appear to be more efficient, but according to the tax authorities, this is not possible. “Most systems and processes within the service are not linked to each other,” explains a spokesperson. “As a result, they work independently and side by side.”
In addition, there are also different variants for physical mail: number of pages, format, with or without a return envelope, and so on. As a result, letters from different processes cannot be merged. “It is therefore perfectly possible that letters come from two different processes and two different postal frequencies, but that they are related. However, we cannot yet combine this,” says the spokesperson.
Can that mail perhaps be digitized, so that paper is saved? “We are working on that. Taxpayers will soon be able to choose whether they want to receive their mail digitally or physically. The systems are now being prepared for this,” says the spokesperson. It is not clear when the systems will be ready.
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