Status: 01/21/2023 2:26 p.m
Owners who do not submit their property tax return by the January 31 deadline usually do not have to expect penalties for the time being. This resulted in a “financial tip” query at the tax offices. The criticism of the reform does not stop.
As part of the property tax reform, almost 36 million properties have to be revalued. For this, owners must submit their property tax return to the tax office by January 31, 2023. So far, however, only a little more than half of the owners have done so. The remainder therefore only have a few days left to submit their declaration on time. Anyone who misses the deadline does not initially have to expect a late payment penalty or fine. This was the result of a survey by the advice portal “Finanztip” at the tax offices of the 16 federal states.
Tax expert Jörg Leine writes on Finanztip.de: “High penalties are possible, but not immediately imminent.”
The Haus & Grund owners’ association had already warned of the possible consequences for all those who did not submit the property tax return, or at least not in time. Accordingly, there is a surcharge of 25 euros per month and a fine of 25,000 euros. In the event of non-delivery, the tax office can also estimate the basis of taxation – from the point of view of Haus & Grund, the “worst case”.
Many federal states want to send reminders
On the basis of the survey of the tax offices of the federal states, tax expert Jörg Leine from Finanztip.de explained: “It is appealed to the insight and moderate behavior of the tax offices mentioned.”
In Baden-Württemberg, Bremen, Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate, defaulting owners initially receive reminders with a new deadline. You should react quickly to this: If the declaration is not submitted later, the respective tax authorities could demand late surcharges and penalties.
Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia also want to remind those affected of the declaration in writing.
In Hamburg it is still unclear what happens if a deadline is missed. A late surcharge can be set according to “Finanztip”. In any case, a fine will only be announced in a letter.
In Bavaria, the tax offices can extend the submission deadline in justified individual cases and only on request.
“Financial Tip”: Avoid guessing
According to “Finanztip”, the property tax return should be submitted as soon as possible. The late surcharges are not the biggest problem at 25 euros per month, explains Leine: “At some point the tax office will resort to last resort if the property tax return has still not been submitted.”
Then the tax office estimates the property tax value instead of calculating it from the declaration. If the living space is estimated to be larger than it actually is, more property tax will be due. “An estimate by the tax office has never been advantageous for taxpayers. Here it means more property tax than necessary and that for many years,” warns Leine. The property tax return is not as complicated as the tax return and can be filled out via the Elster tax portal.
Delivery is sluggish – criticism from the Union
So far, just over half of the owners have submitted their property tax returns. According to the “Handelsblatt” up to and including Tuesday, only 57.4 percent of the declarations to be submitted were received by the tax offices. The federal and state governments had already extended the deadline by three months – originally it was until October 31, 2022.
There should not be another extension of the deadline – the Union calls for it anyway: “The deadline for submitting the property tax return must be extended,” demanded the CSU politician Ulrich Lange. “Nor can it be that citizens and companies are patronized, but the federal government gets an extra sausage for its own properties in September.”
In an answer to a question from a CDU member of the Bundestag, the Ministry of Finance had admitted that all declarations for federal properties could only be made by the end of September.
Taxpayers’ Association threatens to sue
Criticism also comes from the taxpayers’ association. President Reiner Holznagel told the “Bild” newspaper that it was obvious that the new tax would not work that way, contained many injustices and would ultimately lead to significant additional burdens. “That’s why we will bring the new property tax to the Federal Constitutional Court in almost all federal states,” announced Holznagel.
The German Tenants’ Association demanded that the property tax no longer be passed on to the tenants via the utility bill. The property tax is a tax on the ownership of land and buildings, so these costs must be borne by landlords,” said federal director Melanie Weber-Moritz of the “Bild” newspaper.
Karlsruhe judges ordered reform
In 2018, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the property tax in its previous form to be unconstitutional because similar properties are assessed differently. The previous calculation is based on property values that are decades old – in the west they come from 1964, in the east from 1935. Owners from west Germany had complained about this.
In its judgment, the Federal Constitutional Court called on the federal government to reform the property tax. To do this, millions of properties nationwide must first be revalued and owners submit the relevant data in their declaration.
The reform of property tax decided in 2019 should retain the principle that the valuation is based on the value of a property. According to the Federal Ministry of Finance, some taxpayers will have to pay more real estate tax, others less.
The reform should therefore be designed to be revenue-neutral for all taxpayers – the state should not increase its income with it. The new law applies to property tax from 2025.