Residents and businesses contact the tax administration department of Mainz City Council because they need to submit tax returns and declarations, register their businesses, pay taxes, and claim refunds. This involves the processing of personal data.

The following information concerns the processing of personal data for tax and internal administrative purposes, insofar as

• the German Fiscal Code
• the Trade Tax Act
• the Property Tax Act
• the Local Tax Act of Rhineland-Palatinate
• the State Law on the Rhineland-Palatinate Chamber of Agriculture the Sales Promotion Act
• the Vineyard Development Act
• The Wine Act
• The Rhineland-Palatinate State Fees Act
• The tax statutes of the city of Mainz
• the Trade Regulation Act

are directly or indirectly applicable.

In this procedure, data is considered personal if it can be attributed to a natural person, a legal entity (e.g., association, corporation), a group of persons, or an estate. Anonymized and pseudo-anonymized data is not considered personal data. When authorities process personal data, this means that they collect, store, use, transmit, make available for retrieval, or delete this data.

Below, we provide information about what personal data we collect, from whom we collect it, and what we do with this data. We also provide information about your rights in data protection matters and who you can contact in this regard.

"We" are the tax administration department of the Office for Finance, Investments, and Sports of the City of Mainz and are responsible for processing personal data for the purposes of business registration, tax collection, agricultural chamber contributions, wine levies, and fee collection.

Responsible for data processing

City of Mainz
Office for Finance, Investments, and Sports Tax Administration
Department
Jockel-Fuchs-Platz 1
55116 Mainz
Phone: 049 6131 12-2330
Fax: 049 6131 12-2377
Email: steuerverwaltungstadt.mainzde

Data protection officer:

Official Data Protection Officer
Jockel-Fuchs-Platz 1
55116 Mainz
Phone: 049 6131 12-2216
Email: datenschutzstadt.mainzde

We process the following personal data in particular:

• Personal identification and contact details, e.g., first and last name, address, date and place of birth, nationality, tax number, email address, telephone number
• Information required for the assessment and collection of levies (taxes, fees, and contributions)
• Required information, e.g., size and location of the apartment/property, amount of rent, number of roommates, information about the employer, information about the main residence, revenue from gaming machines, information about dance events, annual hunting lease, vineyard areas.
• Calculation bases sent by third parties (e.g., property tax and trade tax assessment notices):

      - Secondary residences

      - Marital status and children

      - Authorized representatives

      - Bank details

      - Information on taxes paid or refunded

      - Information on tax returns submitted and applications made

      - Legal remedies

      - Notifications from lawyers and tax advisors

      - Data from public registers (e.g., commercial register, association register, land register, insolvency notice)

      - Activities in connection with business registrations

      - Business premises addresses

      - Vineyard areas, location

• We collect your personal data primarily from you, e.g., through your tax return, notifications, communications, and applications. In addition, we collect your personal data from third parties, insofar as they are legally obliged to disclose it to us.

Examples:

• Secondary residence data from the relevant registration office
• Data relating to the tenancy agreement from the landlord
• Owners transmit data on property sales, partnership agreements, inheritance contracts, and gift agreements
• Authorities transmit data on payments and administrative acts

We also receive tax-related information from other tax authorities.

If we are unable to clarify a tax-related matter with your help, we may also collect the relevant personal data by making inquiries with third parties (e.g., requests for information from employers, landlords). In enforcement proceedings, we may collect data from third-party debtors, e.g., credit institutions or employers. In addition, we may process publicly available information (e.g., from the Internet, newspapers, public registers, or public announcements).

In order to fulfill our duties and to assess and collect taxes in accordance with legal requirements, we require personal data (Section 85 of the German Tax Code). Your personal data will be processed in the procedure for which it was collected (Section 29b of the German Tax Code). Only in cases expressly permitted by law may we also process the personal data collected for the purpose of conducting a tax procedure for other tax or non-tax purposes (further processing in accordance with Section 29c (1) of the German Fiscal Code).

The collection of personal data for business registrations is carried out in accordance with Section 14 of the Trade Regulation Act (GewO). The further processing of this data is also based on Section 14 GewO.

Example of processing:

The data collected for dog tax is processed for the purpose of assessing dog tax.

Example of further processing:

In the largely automated processes, your personal data is stored and then used in mostly automated registration, determination, and collection processes. We use technical and organizational security measures to protect your personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, or alteration, as well as against unauthorized disclosure or access. Our security standards always comply with the latest technological developments. We only make legally binding decisions based on fully automated processing of personal data if this is permitted by law (e.g., fully automated tax assessment pursuant to Section 155 (4) of the German Fiscal Code).

We may only disclose personal data that has come to our attention in the course of tax proceedings to other persons or bodies (e.g., health insurance companies, pension insurance institutions, or other authorities) if you have consented to this or if the disclosure is permitted by law.

Examples:

• Notification to the tax offices responsible for assessing property tax and trade tax amounts in connection with property tax and trade tax.
• Notification of business registrations to the authorities and agencies specified in § 14 GewO (Trade Regulation Act).
• Notification to the tax authorities, insofar as this is necessary for tax proceedings.
• Notifications to statistical authorities, insofar as this is necessary.

We must store personal data for as long as it is necessary for the proceedings. The benchmark for this is the tax limitation periods (Sections 169–171 of the German Fiscal Code (Abgabenordnung) and Sections 228–232 of the German Fiscal Code) and the prescribed retention periods for accounting documents in accordance with the German Accounting Regulation (GemHVO).

We may also store the relevant personal data in order to process it for future tax proceedings (Section 88a of the German Fiscal Code).

Right to information (Art. 15 GDPR)

You may request information about your personal data processed by us. In your request for information, you should specify your request in order to make it easier for us to compile the necessary data. Therefore, the request should include, if possible, details of the specific administrative procedure (e.g., type of tax and year) and the stage of the procedure (e.g., assessment, payment processing, enforcement).

Right to rectification (Art. 16 GDPR)

If the information concerning you is no longer accurate, you can request that it be corrected. If your data is incomplete, you can request that it be completed.

Right to erasure (Art. 17 GDPR)

You may request the erasure of your personal data. Your right to erasure depends, among other things, on whether the data concerning you is still required by us to fulfill our legal obligations (see point 7).

Right to restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR)

You have the right to request a restriction on the processing of data concerning you. The restriction does not preclude processing if there is an important public interest in the processing (e.g., lawful and equitable taxation).

In accordance with Article 7(3) of the GDPR, you have the right to object to the processing of data concerning you at any time for reasons arising from your particular situation. However, we cannot comply with this if there is an overriding public interest in the processing or if we are required by law to process the data (e.g., implementation of the taxation procedure, maintenance of the trade register).

Every data subject has the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection supervisory authority if they believe that their personal data is being processed unlawfully. You can lodge a complaint with the following data protection supervisory authorities:

10.1. In the context of trade tax and property tax assessment:

The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Husarenstraße 30, 53117 Bonn, Tel.: 02 28 / 99 77 99–0, Fax: 02 28 / 99 77 99-550, Email: poststelle@bfdi.bund.de

10.2. In the context of other municipal taxes:
The State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Rhineland-Palatinate, Hintere Bleiche 34, 55116 Mainz, Tel.: 0 61 31 / 208-2449, fax: 0 61 31 / 208-2497, email: poststelle@datenschutz.rlp.de

In some cases, we cannot or are not permitted to comply with your request (e.g., Sections 32c–32f of the German Fiscal Code). Where permitted by law, we will always inform you of the reason for our refusal in such cases.

However, we will always respond to you within one month of receiving your request. If we need longer than one month to provide a final clarification, you will receive an interim message.

Further information can be found on the following websites:

City of Mainz:

The State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Rhineland-Palatinate:

The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information: