Property tax: How to fill out the forms

Created: 07/28/2022, 11:36 am

By: Patricia Huber

Property owners must file a property tax return this year.

A lot of information is required for this.

The overview.

Munich – The deadline for the property tax return is running.

By October 31, 2022, all owners of land and condominiums and businesses in agriculture and forestry must submit the declaration to determine the property value.

In total, this affects 36 million properties in Germany, which have to be revalued because there is to be a new property tax from 2025.

The previous calculation basis was classified by the Federal Constitutional Court as unconstitutional.

Property tax: How to submit the declaration

Owners must submit the separate property tax return via the online tax portal Elster.

If you don't have an account here yet, you have to register first.

The access data will then be sent to the applicant by post.

In most federal states, it is only possible to submit the property tax return in paper form in justified exceptional cases, for example if the owner does not have access to a computer.

In Bavaria, on the other hand, submission is also possible in paper form without prior application.

Property tax: You need these data and documents

The Federal Ministry of Finance has prepared an overview of the data and documents on its website that you should have at hand for your property tax return.

And these are the following:

• land area

• Land register number (if available), district, corridor, parcel

• For condominiums: co-ownership share in the property

• Tax number/file number of the property (to be found on the letter of request for the declaration of determination or in the last property tax notice)

• ground value

• Exact year of construction of the building (from a year of construction 1949)

• living space

• Number of garage parking spaces

• Contact details of the owners and their ownership interests

This information must be submitted with the property tax return.

If the tax office needs additional documents, they will request them separately.

Exactly which documents are required can also differ from state to state.

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In order to make it easier to submit the declaration, the Federal Ministry of Finance has created a simplified submission option with the "property tax return for private property".

"It enables private owners of detached and semi-detached houses, condominiums and undeveloped land to submit their property tax returns quickly and independently online." You can access the online service here.

However, this simplified form can only be used by owners from federal states that also use the federal model.

Elster must always be used in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, Hesse and Lower Saxony.