Property tax reform – status quo?

Since July 2022, landowners in Germany have been able to submit a declaration to the tax authorities to determine the new property tax. The deadline ends on October 31, 2022. It is halftime.

Based on the well-known map of Germany from the weather report, this map for this article does not show high temperatures, but on the contrary particularly low values.

A look at the rate of submission of property tax returns in the individual federal states shows that only a fraction of the more than 35 million applications have been submitted so far. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper, the fewest taxes are in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with a rate of just 4.2 percent. At 13.9 percent, Hessen is currently doing relatively well in a comparison of the federal states, but is still far below the actual tax rate of 50% that is to be expected.

The Elster portal offered by the tax authorities, through which the majority of property tax returns are submitted, crashed on the first weekend with just a few hundred thousand inquiries. It is therefore doubtful that all applications will be received without any problems by the deadline of October 31, 2022.

Christian Dobner | TLI Steuerberater