Understand your taxes

Preliminary income assessment and tax assessment notice – what´s the difference?

The quick veresion is this:

The preliminary income assessment is a calculation of your income for tax purposes for the coming year.

The tax assessment notice is an overview of your income and tax for the past year.

A preliminary income assessment can be updated regularly, and the tax assessment notice is only calculated once a year.

The preliminary income assessment

The preliminary income assessment is available in November.

This is the document you need to update regularly if your financial situation changes. For example, when you stop receiving study grants or going from a student job to dagpenge (unemployment benefits) and over to when you start making a salary. In these cases, you have to adjust your preliminary income assessment to avoid the numbers not adding up on your tax assessment notice.

It actually makes sense that you don’t pay the same amount of tax on a monthly DKK 40,000 salary as you do on a DKK 8,000 state education grant or student job. The preliminary income assessment tells SKAT how much money they should deduct every month and what your allowance should be. You can see your preliminary income assessment on skat.dk each year from mid-November.

SKAT’s website has usually prepared a draft of your preliminary income assessment based on last year’s income. If your situation doesn’t change at all, you usually don’t have to do anything (although it’s a good idea to check your preliminary income assessment anyway).

Update your preliminary income assessment if:

• You get a (new) job
• Your income increases/decreases
• You take out a loan
• You work from home
• You start/close a business

SKAT’s guide to the preliminary income assessment, Skat.dk

See all the tutorials and learn about Danish tax affairs for internationals.

The tax assessment notice

The tax assessment notice is available once a year in March and shows your income for the past year, in contrast to the preliminary income assessment which shows your expected income for the coming year.

You don’t prepare your tax assessment notice yourself.

SKAT will prepare it for you by gathering information from your bank and your employer. The tax assessment notice tells you if you are entitled to a refund of overpaid tax or if you have paid too little tax last year.

You have to check yourself whether any calculation mistakes have been made and you have to pay additional tax or you are due a tax refund from SKAT.

You usually don’t have to do anything.

However, there are a few exceptions. You have to enter the following information yourself on the tax assessment notice (note, these might change or no longer be in effect, so check out the Deductions and allowances list on SKAT to make sure):

Deduction for transport between home and work, deductions for trade union, deduction for household services, profit or loss on shares and other securities, income from sharing economy activities, child maintenance, maintenance payments, food and accommodation in double housekeeping, deductions for workwear, professional literature, etc.

The deadline for correcting the tax assessment notice is usually 1 May.

SKAT’s guide to the tax assessment notice, Skat.dk

See and correct your tax assessment notice, Skat.dk