In any case where the submitted declarations don’t need any further work, the Tax and Customs Board will start paying out rebates on Feb. 28. Residents have until Mar. 31 to submit their tax declaration for 2016.

This year several changes were introduced:

• If a private owner of an apartment rents it out to another private individual, the owner has to declare the rent income as part of their annual income themselves.
• While in the past the full amount of rent income was taxed, this has now been reduced to 80 percent. At the same time, the Tax Board would like to remind everyone with a home loan that they need to send in documentation about their interest payments through their Internet bank themselves.
• Starting this year, the cost of driving lessons towards an A or B category driver’s licence (for a motorcycle or car) can no longer be deducted from tax. The same goes for the cost of other further education courses taken by adults.
• Another change concerns notifications about missing documentation. While in the past, anyone submitting documents or data to the Tax Board heard back from them about potential missing documents with a delay, this will now get displayed immediately.
• While this year the Tax Board’s e-services can still be accessed with bank codes, this won’t be the case anymore next year. Access via ID card or Mobile-ID is considered substantially safer, which is why the bank link based on codes will no longer be available.

The Tax Board opened its system for declarations already before midnight on Feb. 14, which is part of the reason why such a large number have already been submitted. On Wednesday morning the board's online services displayed an apology: due to very high visitor numbers, services were temporarily limited.