COVID-19 means that many of us have spent significantly more days working from home in 2020 than we normally would have. This means that it is no longer possible for the Danish Customs and Tax Administration to automatically calculate your employees' transport allowance.
Therefore, it has been decided that field 11 in eIncome will be removed as of 31/12/2020, while the reporting obligation already expired on 31 October.
How does it usually work?
Under normal circumstances, employers have had to check field 11 in eIncome for employees who should not have an automatic calculation of their transport allowance done. This has applied to employees who, for various reasons, performed work somewhere other than at the company premises, e.g. at their place of residence.
In 2020, many Danes have had to work from home, and as things are, 2021 will probably not be much different. At the same time, the overall trend in society is that jobs are becoming more flexible, and more companies are increasing the degree to which employees can work from home.
Contrary to a checked field 11, an empty field has meant that, based on the distance between home and place of work, the Danish Customs and Tax Administration automatically calculated transport allowance for 18 days per month. This method gives 216 days of transport per year, which corresponds to a year with 6 weeks of holiday and 6–8 extra days without transport to the workplace, e.g. sick days or days off. This automatic calculation is what the Danish Customs and Tax Administration is now abandoning.
What now?
As an employer, you no longer have an obligation to report in field 11 – and soon, the field will no longer be there at all. A cross in field 11 for periods of 2021 will be rejected. When your employees receive their annual tax return from the Danish Customs and Tax Administration in mid-March, a transport allowance will not appear automatically. From now on, employees must report the transport allowance themselves via TastSelv on skat.dk.
Azets recommend that, as an employer, you ensure that your employees are informed about this change so that they register correctly and do not end up getting either too little or too much in transportation allowance.
