Tax administrator

What it means

The tax administrator is the authority that runs a particular tax: the tax office for income tax and VAT, the customs office for excise duties and customs, the municipality for local taxes and the waste fee. It is not one faceless institution.

It conducts tax proceedings with whoever stands as the tax subject: registering it, assessing the tax, auditing and collecting arrears. Territorial competence follows the seat or residence, while the largest taxpayers sit with a dedicated office.

The tax administrator should be told apart from the body that decides on an appeal. For tax offices that is the Financial Directorate, which receives the file only after the tax administrator has reviewed and forwarded it. Both belong to the Financial Administration, but they have different roles in the proceedings, and at first instance the taxpayer always deals with the tax administrator.

How it works in practice

Communication is electronic and deadlines run from delivery to the mailbox. The administrator issues requests and decisions, carries out a tax audit or a local inquiry, and keeps the taxpayer’s tax account.

The same office grants deferral and instalments and confirms that nothing is owed. Its decisions are challenged by an appeal lodged through the very administrator that issued them, and a change of seat moves the file to another office.

When we deal with the office on a client’s behalf, the tax administrator receives a power of attorney. Its scope decides who documents are delivered to: where we represent the client in the whole proceedings they come to us and deadlines run from delivery to us, so we agree with the client in advance exactly what the authority covers and how we keep each other informed.

What to watch out for

Refusing to cooperate during an audit is what costs the most: if the company ignores the requests and produces no documents, the administrator determines the tax by estimate, from whatever sources it can gather. Documents produced after that point serve only as one more such source, and its own calculation stands.

Companies focus on the tax office and forget that for property tax and the other local taxes the tax administrator is the municipality. It issues its own requests, decisions and deadlines, delivers them somewhere other than where the company expects its post, and collects unpaid tax just like arrears owed to the state, enforcement included.