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Houses at Tegernsee
Photo: Frank HOERMANN / imago images / Sven Simon
Bavaria is single-handedly extending the deadline for filing property tax returns.
Property owners should be given three months more time, i.e. until the end of April, said Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU) after a cabinet meeting in Munich.
The aim is to relieve the tax advisory professions in particular.
The Bavarian government is reacting to the sluggish submission of the declarations.
Most recently, the data from almost a third of all property owners was still missing in Bavaria - although the rates are quite similar nationwide.
Up to and including Monday, more than 4.3 million property tax returns were submitted throughout Bavaria.
This corresponds to around 68 percent of the total declarations to be made, as the Ministry of Finance announced.
Originally, the deadline for submitting the new property tax returns was the end of October 2022.
This period was then extended throughout Germany up to and including January 31st.
There was no further nationwide extension of the deadline until recently.
The Bavarian decision is therefore very surprising.
Shortly before the expiry of the previous deadline, Füracker had only emphasized that there were no immediate sanctions if someone did not submit their property tax return on time.
“No one has to worry about being fined tomorrow.
Not even for the next few days or weeks,” said Füracker on Bavarian radio.
From 2025, the property tax for well over six million economic units in Bavaria will be calculated on a new assessment basis.
The background is a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2018, according to which the previous assessment basis in Germany is unconstitutional.
In Bavaria, the recalculation is based on a separate model, since the federal model is “too bureaucratic” for the state government.