If Austrian entrepreneurs who are entitled to deduct input tax in Austria pay invoices for their business abroad, the entrepreneur must pay the gross amount, i.e. including foreign VAT.
This often concerns hotel bills, petrol or restaurant bills in the context of business trips. However, the VAT paid can be refunded afterwards – under certain conditions!
So if your managers and employees travel a lot, you should consider or discuss with your tax advisor whether a tax refund application makes sense.
Our accounting team has a lot of experience in this and can prepare applications for you – for example, on the basis of the digital receipts in accounting. Or we can analyse your trips abroad. Collect suitable receipts per country and check whether they are “sufficient” for the application.
Requirements and deadlines:
It should be noted that different regulations apply to reimbursement applications between member states of the European Union and third countries.
- Within the EU, the application must be submitted to the Austrian tax office by 30 September of the following year, i.e. for foreign input tax amounts from the year 2022 by 30 September 2023.
- Invoices used as a basis are generally not to be submitted. (However, for invoice amounts exceeding EUR 1,000 or for fuel invoices exceeding EUR 250, these may be requested by the Member State).
- One application can be made per quarter, whereby the input tax to be refunded must amount to at least EUR 400.
- If the refund is only applied for the last calendar months of a year (e.g. November and December) or for a whole calendar year, a minimum amount of EUR 50 applies.
- The competent tax authority must refund the input tax within four months. If further documents are requested, this period is extended to eight months.
- If the refund application relates to a third country, the application must be submitted to the foreign tax office, usually by 30 June of the following year.
- Refund applications for third countries must be submitted in paper form together with the entrepreneur’s certificate and original invoices.
If you have the opportunity, simply ask your Hübner & Hübner advisor or request a free callback.
It would be a shame to leave input tax lying around!