The reform of the property tax is pending.
All property owners must take action in advance.
The need for advice is great - the tax consultants notice that too.
Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen - Property owners have received mail from the tax office in the past few weeks - and since then the phones of many tax consultants have not stopped ringing.
The need for advice is great and action must be taken within a relatively short period of time.
The reason for all of this is an upcoming reform of the property tax.
Experts from the district explain what needs to be done now.
Property tax: In 2018, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the current form unconstitutional
The background: In 2018, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the property tax in its current form to be unconstitutional.
The judges criticized the fact that the amount of the property tax is based on so-called standard values, which, believe it or not, date back to 1964 - in the eastern German states even from 1935.
By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Bad Tölz newsletter.
"The standard values should generally be determined at intervals of six years in a so-called main assessment," explains the Tölz lawyer and tax consultant Dr.
John Stehr.
After 1964, however, there were no further main findings - "due to the administrative effort", says Stehr.
Some states, including Bavaria, are going their own way
"The actual values are now very distorted," notes Sina Müller from the press office of the State Tax Office.
"Therefore, the legislature was commissioned by the Federal Constitutional Court with a new regulation of the property tax."
There is now a “federal model” for this new regulation.
However, some federal states, including Bavaria, have taken the opportunity to go their own way - or, in Sina Müller's words, "seized the opportunity to implement an unbureaucratic property tax model".
In the Free State, the property tax will in future be determined on the basis of purely physical area values.
Only the base and usable area of a property counts - and not its actual value.
The square meter numbers are then multiplied by an "equivalent measurement amount".
The result is a “property tax base amount”.
Each municipality sets its own tax rate
And the property tax rate, which each municipality determines itself, is then applied to this.
After all, the income from the property tax also remains with the cities and municipalities.
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Stehr makes a sample calculation for a property with 600 square meters of land, of which 160 square meters is living space.
The 600 square meters are multiplied by the equivalent number of 4 cents, the 160 square meters of living space by 35 cents.
The result is a property tax base amount of 80 euros.
With a municipal assessment rate of 400 percent, a tax liability of 320 euros per year results.
Property owners must provide information about their property
All of this will only apply from January 1, 2025.
But now all property owners are asked to provide the necessary information on the size of their property, living space and usable space.
This must be done between July 1st and October 31st, 2022 via property tax return.
Actually, the information is not too complicated.
"The owners are usually aware of the living or usable area," says Sina Müller.
The information can be found in documents such as purchase or donation contracts.
Documents such as construction records or utility bills can also be used.
Otherwise, the living or usable area could also be "measured manually".
In addition, property information, such as field number or area, can be accessed online free of charge in the "Bavaria Atlas" from July until the end of 2022.
Owners should already collect some data
Stehr advises the owners to collect some basic data now and have it ready or send it to the tax consultant, namely: address, land register data including property size, living space and information on whether it is social housing or a monument - because in the latter cases there are tax reductions.
Many inquiries are received by the tax consultants
The Wolfratshausen tax consultant Eva von Stülpnagel assumes that 80 percent of the cases "go through" without any problems - but with the rest there is still a need for clarification at one point or another.
And so she definitely expects additional work - even if in principle everyone can also make the property tax return themselves, either via the online portal Elster or in paper form.
In any case, there are currently “many inquiries” at the von Stülpnagel, Wurm, Freischlad law firm, says Eva von Stülpnagel.
"The inquiries have increased by leaps and bounds since the information letter was sent out by the tax authorities," confirms her colleague Stehr from Tölz.
Tax consultants fear work overload
Eva von Stülpnagel is a bit worried about the factors "mass and time", as she says.
"What's on our minds is the question of how we're going to manage all of this between July 1st and October 31st," she says - and that in a year in which tax consultants generally also have their hands full with financial issues in connection with the deal with the pandemic.
The tax consultant praised the cooperation with the tax office in Wolfratshausen.
There was an information evening for tax consultants there these days.
"We'll see how we can get it together."
It will be more expensive for some and cheaper for others
And what should the taxpayer expect?
Will it be more expensive or cheaper for him?
None of the experts dares to make a prediction about this yet.
According to Sina Müller, it is in the nature of any reform that in the end the tax level will not be exactly the same as before.
The aim of the reform in Bavaria is that each municipality should earn no more and no less than before.
As far as the individual is concerned, von Stülpnagel and Stehr agree that it will probably be more expensive for some and cheaper for others.
However, more details can only be said when the municipalities set their assessment rates for 2025 in 2024.
For the future, however, the Bavarian value-independent model protects the landowners from the fact that the property tax automatically increases with rising property prices.
Because there will be no recalculation of the property tax amount every seven years, as provided for in the federal model, in Bavaria.
Further information
is available online at www.grundsteuer.bayern.de or from the information hotline for Bavarian property tax on 089/30 70 00 77.
You can find more current news from the region around Bad Tölz at Merkur.de/Bad Tölz.