Company not responsible for accountant’s mistake in VAT return, court rules out penalty

A BV had been imposed a default penalty by the tax authorities, but this was struck down by the North Holland court
The accountant had sent an incorrect version of the VAT return to the company, resulting in an underpayment
The tax authorities imposed an additional assessment and default penalty for failing to pay the sales tax on time
The company argued that it was not their fault that the amount was not paid on time because of the auditor’s error
The Inland Revenue argued that the default penalty was justified and that the company should have known that the amount was incorrect
The company and the accountant took measures to prevent such a situation from occurring again

Source: fiscaalvanmorgen.nl

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

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