Luxembourg to Launch Fully Digital Tax Declaration Procedure in February 2022

On Monday 22 November 2021, Luxembourg's Minister of Finance, Pierre Gramegna, and the Minister for Digitalisation, Marc Hansen, presented the end-to-end digital declaration for personal income tax and a new assistant on MyGuichet.lu, which are aimed at facilitating the process from February 2022.

The fully digital declaration will allow the taxpayer to declare income in a simpler and faster way. At the same time, the Luxembourg Inland Revenue (Administration des contributions directes - ACD) will be equipped to process the declaration completely digitally so as to considerably shorten the production of statements.

Minister Gramegna commented: “Thanks to the introduction of this digital procedure, the majority of taxpayers who are natural persons will be able to benefit from end-to-end digital processing of their tax return for the year 2021. This innovation will facilitate the process for taxpayers and speed up the processing by the Luxembourg Inland Revenue. I am delighted that taxpayers will be able to receive their bulletin and their statement within two weeks after their declaration. And this with a guarantee of security and confidentiality”.

The new joint initiative of ACD and the Government IT Centre (Centre des technologies de l'information de l'État - CTIE) constitutes a significant additional step on the road to eGovernment and the simplification and modernisation of exchanges between administrations and citizens. As such, it is part of the 2021-2025 e-governance strategy developed by the Ministry for Digitalisation and the CTIE, and adopted by the Government Council.

Minister Hansen underlined that the ministry invests great efforts to advance eGovernment in the interest of citizens and businesses, as well as administrations. He also expressed great satisfaction with this digital evolution of the tax declaration. “The advantages of the new MyGuichet.lu assistant are multiple. Its dynamic side and its ergonomics much more suitable than the PDF currently used will make it a modern tool worthy of the digital transition of State public services”, he commented.

The new procedure and MyGuichet.lu assistant will be available to eligible taxpayers, from 7 February 2022, for the tax return for the tax year 2021. It is intended for both residents and non-residents.

Eligible taxpayers are those who earn income from paid employment or beneficiaries of a pension. Rental income is also included in this new procedure. Thus, approximately 70% of the 300,000 natural person taxpayers will be able to use this new approach. To benefit from this digital processing, the taxpayer must however have filed their tax returns for all financial years prior to 2021.

The end-to-end digital approach on MyGuichet.lu will be extended later to obtain coverage for all taxpayers. Taxpayers realising income such as commercial profit, agricultural and forestry profit, profit from the exercise of a liberal profession or net income from movable capital, not eligible in the initial phase, will be gradually included. More detailed information concerning the eligibility conditions as well as the special expenses and extraordinary charges covered by the new approach will be communicated on the ACD website before 31 December 2021.

These new tools will allow ACD officers to speed up the processing times for the declarations received. The tax form as well as the statement can in a majority of cases be established by the ACD within fifteen days of receipt of the declaration.

Accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the MyGuichet.lu assistant will guide the user through all the stages of tax declaration. Depending on the data entered, the assistant would fill the list of mandatory supporting documents to be attached and the applicant can also attach additional documents.

In addition, the various fields of the form can be pre-filled by importing a structured file or using data previously stored in the declarant's personal MyGuichet.lu space.

Through the authentication system and the electronic signature linked to the LuxTrust certificate (identity card, Smartcard, Signing Stick or Token), the MyGuichet.lu transaction platform is set to guarantee highly secure exchanges as well as respect for the confidentiality of personal data.

In this context, it is recalled that consultation via the professional space on MyGuichet.lu of the tax forms for employees and / or pensioners is compulsory for all employers from 1 January 2022. Employers are therefore invited to request a "token" as soon as possible in order to access the tax forms of their current and / or retired employees.