When you log in to MyTax, your tax-related letters will change from paper to electronic form automatically. Read more about the changes.
Will the Tax Administration apply my refund on the real estate tax automatically?
No. But you can avoid late-payment interest by always making sure to pay your real estate taxes by their due dates.
Your refund would only be re-directed to settling a real estate tax if that tax had fallen due before the end date of your tax assessment process. The Tax Administration’s process of assessing your individual income taxes will end on the date when we have finished the work on the tax return that you sent.
You can look up your tax decision in MyTax and see the end date. In general, your refund can only be used on real estate tax during a period starting on your assessment end date and ending the 4th day of the following month.
Example: The date when the Tax Administration will have completed the assessment of individual income taxes for Paul is in June. A refund payable to Paul is scheduled for 3 August. Paul needs to pay a real estate tax, the due date of which is 6 August. The refund is not used on the real estate tax, because the tax assessment will have ended before the real estate tax is due. As a result, Paul will receive the refund on 3 August into his bank account. If Paul were to miss the due date – 6 August – of his real estate tax, it would start collecting interest.
Example: Karen forgot the first instalment of real estate tax. The due date for paying it was 6 August. Karen’s unpaid tax starts collecting late-payment interest on the next day.
The date when the Tax Administration completes Karen’s income tax assessment is a few days later, but also in August.
Karen's tax decision indicates that she gets a refund. The date of the refund is 3 October. However, after Karen’s end date of tax assessment passes, the Tax Administration will automatically use the refundable amount in order to cover the unpaid real estate tax and its late-payment interest in August.
As a result, on her tax refund date 3 October, she will only receive a remaining amount, i.e. what is left of her refund when the unpaid tax and late-payment interest are subtracted.
Read more:
Tax refunds used for paying taxes
How to see it in MyTax if your tax refund has been used for paying taxes