Property tax: Expert advises all owners to object to the tax office decision

Created: 01/12/2022 08:32

By: Lisa Mayerhofer

All property owners in Germany must submit a property tax return by the end of January.

Tax consultant Oliver Hagen expresses harsh criticism – and advises taking action against the property tax assessment.

Berlin - The deadline for the property tax return was actually October 31 - now the deadline has been postponed to January 31, 2023.

Many owners are lagging behind when submitting the property tax return. At the beginning of October, only a third of those affected should have submitted their documents.

All owners of land, houses and apartments have to submit a one-off property tax return.

The word property tax on a property tax notice.

© Bernd Weißbrod/dpa/symbol image

Property tax returns are anything but easy for laypersons

The background is a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court on the recalculation of property tax.

The tax offices had previously calculated the value of a property for the property tax on the basis of completely outdated data - namely from 1935 in East Germany and from 1964 in West Germany.

Almost 36 million properties now have to be revalued for the recalculation.

Filling out the forms for the property tax return is anything but easy for laypersons.

In addition, the federal states also use different models and request different data from the owners to calculate the new property tax.

Tax advisor with harsh criticism of the property tax reform: "Hopelessly overwhelmed"

, tax consultant Oliver Hagen expressed

harsh criticism of the property tax reform: “Most people are hopelessly overwhelmed by it.

The Elster forms, which are supposed to be used to submit the information, have not been thought through in the slightest, nor has the system of collection.” That is now taking revenge.

As an expert, he too has reached his limits: “Many things are unclear because key terms are so vague.

The constellation of this property tax return is scandalous and means that tax consultants can hardly help.”

To do this, owners would have to submit the declaration without knowing what the tax burden will be.

Because: Only in 2024 will the municipalities determine how high the respective assessment rate and thus the property tax will be.

"It's like flying blind.

Under such conditions, you do not submit any other tax return. In the case of an income tax return, for example, citizens know their tax burden before submitting it.

I'm afraid that will keep the courts busy for a long time," Hagen told

.

Tax consultant: All owners should file an objection to the property tax assessment

Even if the owners receive their property tax assessment from the tax office after submitting the declaration, it is still far from clear how much tax they have to pay.

In addition, Hagen assumes that the property tax value "will be calculated too high in many cases".

He warns in

: "And it won't be trivial to check this, because the objection period for taxpayers is only one month.

If the deadline is missed, the tax burden on the property is fixed for the next seven years.”

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The expert therefore advises all owners to protect themselves: as soon as they receive the property tax assessment, they should lodge an objection.

"In my view, it is the only way to deal sensibly with this anti-citizen objection period.

With the objection you stop the deadline, you get more time to check and you can react if parts of the regulation are overturned by the courts in the coming years," explains the tax consultant in

The objection can also be withdrawn later without damage.

Own property: let us know.