New property tax: User rush paralyzes the Elster control platform

Created: 07/11/2022, 16:20

By: Lisa Mayerhofer

The rush was too big for the Elster control platform.

The portal suffers from technical problems after the rush of the owners because of the property tax declaration.

Munich – The tax office probably did not expect so much zeal among German citizens: the nationwide tax platform Elster continues to suffer from technical problems.

On Monday, too, users were informed on the website that there were “currently restrictions on availability”.

The reason for this is the enormous interest in the forms for property tax reform.

Problems with Elster: the rush for forms for property tax returns is too great

The Bavarian State Office for Taxes, which operates the Elster (abbreviation for "Electronic Tax Return") site for all of Germany, initially gave no comment on how long the problems could continue.

"We are working flat out to solve the technical difficulties," said a spokeswoman.

The authority ruled out a hacker attack as the cause of the problems.

Rather, the sole reason should be the property tax return, which millions of property owners have had to submit electronically since the beginning of July.

"At the weekend, due to very high user requests of well over 100,000 simultaneous accesses, there were unfortunately temporary restrictions and disruptions for some users," explained the spokeswoman.

Elster: Property tax return must be submitted by October 31st

According to the authority, the problems only affect the website www.elster.de and the related portal “Mein Elster”, where users can log in personally.

Accounting software that transmits the data via an Elster interface is not restricted.

Property owners are not yet pressed for time.

The property tax return must be submitted by October 31st.

However, many apparently want to get the declaration over with quickly or submit it at the same time as the tax return.

And Elster is usually the only way for owners to submit a property tax return.

If you want to submit the declaration in paper form, you have to submit an extra application in some federal states.