BMF provides additional guidance on electronic transmission of financial statements to the tax authorities

The Ministry of Finance (BMF) recently issued official guidance on the electronic transmission of financial statements to the tax authorities. 

Taxpayers that are required to prepare financial statements must electronically submit data on their balance sheet and income statement for fiscal years starting after 31 December 2010, using an official format for the transmission (see GTLN 9/2008 and 1/2009). The balance sheet must either be prepared in accordance with German tax rules, or, if based on German GAAP, a book-to-tax reconciliation must be submitted. 

The recent guidance describes the requirements for the format and the content of such transmissions to the tax authorities. Data must be submitted using the XBRL-standard (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) as described in previous tax authorities’ guidance. Final details regarding the extent, structure and level of detail of the data still remain unclear and will be the subject of future guidance to be published by the BMF. 

If you have any questions, please contact the authors of this article at gtln@deloitte.de or your regular Deloitte contact.