Reporting procedures
Pension payment notification to the ZfA
The electronic tax reporting procedure between the pension institution, the Central Office for Retirement Savings Allowances and the tax authorities. Mandatory for professional pension institutions.
What is it?
The pension payment notification procedure, briefly explained.
The pension payment notification procedure (RBM) is an electronic tax reporting procedure between a pension institution or another pension provider, the Central Office for Retirement Savings Allowances (ZfA) and the tax authorities. It reports which benefits a pension recipient received in the past year so that the tax office can tax them correctly.
Legal basis. The procedure is mandatory for professional pension institutions. The relevant provisions are in particular § 22a EStG in conjunction with § 93c AO.
Process
Who reports what to whom.
01
Pension recipient
Receives a benefit from the pension institution. They do not have to report anything themselves – the institution does this for them.
02
Pension institution with netPension®
Generates the pension payment notification from the benefit data that is already in the system and transmits it electronically.
03
ZfA
The Central Office for Retirement Savings Allowances is based at the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund and, in this procedure, is essentially the central technical receiving and forwarding office. It carries out automated checks for completeness, consistency and correct data format; no tax-law review of the individual case takes place there.
04
Tax authorities
The responsible tax office receives the notification and uses it as the basis for taxation.
In netPension®
The report is generated from the current records.
The benefit data from which the pension payment notification is generated is already in the system – it is not entered again for the report. What has to be reported results from the assessments and credit postings of the year.
Generate, check and transmit the annual report from the benefit data
Import rejections from the ZfA, assign them to the member and report again with corrections
Log of what was reported when and what was confirmed
Adaptation to changed formats as part of software maintenance
Frequently asked questions
Questions about the pension payment notification.
Who is obliged to submit the pension payment notification?
The paying offices are obliged to notify – in professional pension provision, that is the pension institution, not the pension recipient. The procedure is mandatory for professional pension institutions; the legal basis is in particular § 22a EStG in conjunction with § 93c AO.
Does the ZfA check whether the taxation is correct?
No. The ZfA carries out automated checks for completeness, consistency and correct data format and forwards the data. The tax-law review of the individual case takes place at the tax authorities, not at the ZfA.
What happens to rejected reports?
They are corrected and reported again. netPension® imports the feedback, assigns it to the member concerned and shows what needs to be corrected – you do not have to piece the case together from a log.
Would you like to see how this would look for you?
We show you netPension® along the lines of your questions – no slides, but the running software. Give us a call or request a demo.