What can entrepreneurship achieve when the government sleeps? Taxx.lu’s success story offers some answers.
The Luxembourgish government may have put digitalisation at the forefront of its agenda but according to taxx.lu CEO and co-founder Patrick Malget “tax digitalisation” is still pretty much a non-topic.
Add to that the fact that filling out the tax return form consists of nearly 20 pages of repetitive information where many calculations have to be done by hand, it comes as no surprise that Patrick decided to solve the issue himself.
“When I was doing my tax return, I was lost. I was looking around and trying to find the answers in a book. But in the end, it was quite difficult. I was thinking to myself if I have problems with this, having studied economics for five years, other people must struggle with it too,” explains Patrick.
Launched in 2018, taxx.lu is a nifty digital platform that has successfully simplified and digitalised the tax return process, cutting it down to around half an hour for the average citizen.
“Our platform easily covers 95% of tax situations in Luxembourg. We offer a live chat function and an extensive FAQ per section of the tax return form. For the 5% of users, if the taxpayer’s situation is too complex, we can get him in touch with a fiduciary, that can help. And our platform even suggests ways to save on taxes in the future,” says Patrick.
Easy Does It
Having recently added advanced auto-scan and auto-fill features which work for all luxembourgish tax return related documents, the time to complete one’s tax return has been reduced even more. Furthermore, the platform can now also import all of last year’s details, saving additional time.
Describing Luxembourg’s tax law as a “living creature that is always growing”, the team behind taxx.lu also recently hired an additional tax expert to help them stay up-to-date with the finer details and new regulations.
Costing 50€ per tax return form and an additional 20€ for people with rental income, the platform has already won over many users. With over 20K declarations and new features on the horizon – including auto-check features and a cross-border worker segment – it comes as a surprise that the government has not started working with taxx.lu yet.
“A Fortress Within A Fortress”
Describing the tax administration “as far behind” where “nothing has been automated yet” and saying that taxx.lu’s “system could help them with many issues”, Patrick makes it clear that they are open to working with the government.
While the government has recently launched a digital assistant for the tax return, Patrick maintains that “it only covers 60-70% of the use tax cases [which] is even less than our first version of taxx.lu that we released in 2018.”
Regardless of whether the “fortress within a fortress” – Patrick’s name for the tax administration – will reach out to the team behind taxx.lu, their story is an inspiring reminder of what determined entrepreneurship can achieve.
