Waiver of a penalty

What it means

A waiver of a penalty is a decision by which the tax administrator, on request, cancels an already imposed fine or late payment interest in whole or in part. The tax itself is never waived and stays due even after a favourable decision.

It is not an entitlement that can be enforced. The law says relief may be granted, not that it must be, and for a business it is also assessed under the de minimis aid rules, so the outcome turns on the reasons and on the aid ceiling.

A waiver and an appeal answer different questions. An appeal argues the decision is wrong; a waiver request accepts that the penalty was rightly imposed and asks for relief because of circumstances such as illness, a natural disaster or a major customer failing to pay.

How it works in practice

The request goes in writing through the Financial Administration portal, with the reasons and the documents that support them. The penalty has to be imposed by a decision first: asking in advance to waive something not yet imposed leads nowhere.

Filing the request does not postpone the due date, and waiving the penalty does not make the tax arrears go away. A company that simply has no cash is better served by permission to pay in instalments or by a deferral, requested the same way.

We back the request with concrete evidence of why payment was late: a medical report on the director, a record of an insured event or a statement showing customers’ delayed payments. The office also weighs how the company has met its duties so far, which its tax reliability index reflects too.

What to watch out for

A company receives an assessment with a fine and, instead of an appeal, files a request for a waiver. The request does not stop the clock: after thirty days the assessment is final, the tax itself can no longer be challenged, and at best the penalty goes, which is a fraction of the sum.

For a business a waived penalty counts towards de minimis aid. A company that also draws grants or other relief under de minimis may therefore narrow the room for aid it had planned, so the ceiling is tracked across all sources together.