Extension of delivery deadlines: four-day rule for tax assessment notices from 2025

On 5 July 2024, the Federal Council approved the Postal Law Modernization Act (PostModG). This law stipulates that the postal service will be given more time to deliver letters in future. Currently, at least 80% of letters must be delivered within one working day and 95% after two working days. The PostModG stipulates that 95% of all letters must be delivered after three working days and 99% after four days. This also has an impact on the delivery of important documents, such as tax assessments.

Therefore, with the adoption of the PostModG, the presumption rules for the delivery of administrative documents in Sections 122 and 122a of the German Fiscal Code (AO) will be extended. In order to take account of the changed delivery time requirements, the presumption rules for the delivery of administrative acts pursuant to Section 122 (2) No. 1 and (2a) AO and Section 122a (4) sentence 1 AO will be extended from three to four days. This means that a tax assessment notice is now deemed to have been served four days after being posted.

No notification of tax assessments at weekends or on public holidays
Originally, the draft bill stipulated that tax assessments could also be issued on Saturdays. However, this regulation was not adopted. For the recipient (Section 108 (3) AO), this means that the start of the objection period is postponed to the next working day if the end of the four-day period falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday.

The new regulation applies to all administrative acts that are posted, transmitted electronically or made available electronically for retrieval after December 31, 2024.