Was the property tax chaos avoidable?

Created: 12/29/2022, 2:04 p.m

By: Sophia Lother

Property tax is a headache for many homeowners.

But the real problem lies in a database.

Kassel – The property tax is now something of a red rag for many owners.

In addition to special rules and deadlines that must be observed in the property tax return, many problems were already apparent in advance.

As early as 2019,

reported that the authorities were not prepared for a property tax reform.

At that time, the lack of electronic networking and the lack of a comprehensive database were criticized.

And this is exactly where the core of a problem seems to lie that is causing a lot of chaos with property taxes in Germany.

Because a uniform database is still not available - it was actually planned for a long time, as

reported by

As early as 2018, an official of the Federal Ministry of Finance had warned in a confidential note that the construction of the database was significantly behind schedule, the newspaper reported at the time.

At the time, the Ministry of Finance itself emphasized in a draft bill that the prerequisite for determining the new property tax amounts was "that the entire process be carried out largely fully automatically".

Could the chaos with the property tax have at least been mitigated?

(symbol photo) © Eckhard Stengel/Imago

Property tax chaos: could it have been avoided with a database?

Actually, a so-called real estate and property database (lobster) should help to avoid chaos and problems with property tax.

The property information should be collected here, and thus enable the calculation of the values.

Since the database does not yet exist, however, the owners are now responsible, reports the

, adding that a lot of the information is actually available from the authorities.

However, due to a lack of staff, it is therefore not possible to present the data to the citizens and to process objections.

And the construction of the property database also fails due to very similar problems.

Florian Köbler, chairman of the German tax union, told the

: "We have to set priorities in the current situation and these priorities are not up to the lobster".

• What data must be submitted with the declaration "property tax return for private property"?

• size of the property

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

• For condominiums: co-ownership share in the property

• Tax number/file number of the property

• ground value

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

• Living area

  
  
  

  Number of garage parking spaces

• Contact details of the owners and their shares in the property

  
  

  (source: Federal Ministry of Finance)

Database to help with property tax returns: when should the lobster start?

But the database could have at least alleviated the problems with the property tax return, the FDP member of parliament and tax politician Markus Herbrand is also certain and explains to the

: "A mature languste database would have at least reduced the property tax chaos significantly, probably also prevented it".

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But the database hasn't ended up in the graveyard of planned but never-completed tasks yet.

In a response from the Federal Government to a small inquiry in 2021, it said: "To the knowledge of the Federal Government, the federal states are currently planning the developmental completion of the LANGUSTE Level I property database for November 30, 2022. After that, the LANGUSTE property database should be available in the first half of 2023 at least piloted for half a year and then successively made available for the countries." (slo)