The Flaws of Pre-Completed and Simplified Tax Returns: Why Don’t They Work?

Why do pre-filled and simplified tax returns not work?

The pre-filled and simplified tax returns are not off to a good start.
Today, accessing the Revenue Agency portal to try to modify and submit one’s pre-filled tax return results in either a blank page or at best a message stating there are technical issues.
The advice given is to contact assistance.

For those in a hurry to submit their tax return and wish to proceed independently, this year is definitely not the best year.
This is not the first service disruption and it is likely all connected to the launch of the new simplified tax return form.

Why don’t pre-filled and simplified forms work?

Several users reported this morning the impossibility to add additional data to the simplified tax return.
In the afternoon, the situation worsened to the point where access to the pre-filled tax return was no longer possible.

The system allows to view the taxpayer’s personal information, the Unique Certifications, dependent family members, income from properties, income from work, and deductions and expenses.
It indicates which data has been used and which has not, but when attempting to complete the tax return, a blank page is returned after a long wait for the data to load.

This issue could be caused by the simultaneous high volume of accesses.
However, what raises suspicion is that this is not the first service disruption during this tax declaration season that has just begun.

Previous Issues at the Revenue Agency

The first problems arose when the pre-filled and simplified tax return was made available for consultation: some users were unable to access the data and received a message stating:

“Your pre-filled tax return is being reprocessed.
We are updating the information due to corrections made by third parties or discrepancies found in the processed data.
The updated pre-filled tax return will be available in a few days.”

After a few days, the situation normalized, and all taxpayers were granted read-only access to the pre-filled tax return.

Further issues occurred this morning when it was not possible to modify the data in the simplified tax return (which had been in testing since yesterday, being the main novelty for 2024).
The portal simply did not allow adding new data to the existing ones.
In the afternoon, access to the tax return was no longer possible.
Are there issues that the Revenue Agency cannot resolve?