Lawsuit against property tax: "Possible in a banana republic, but not in a constitutional state"
Created: 01/13/2023, 15:45
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
The reform of the property tax causes heavy criticism.
The taxpayers' association and the Haus & Grund owners' association are planning model lawsuits before the Federal Constitutional Court.
Berlin - It is one of the largest tax reforms in the history of the Federal Republic: 36 million properties have to be revalued for the planned property tax reform.
Every owner in Germany must therefore submit a property tax return, which the tax office should then use to calculate the new property tax from 2025.
Depending on the federal state, the property tax is calculated according to different models.
Property tax reform: Associations are planning model lawsuits
The deadline for submitting the declaration is the end of January.
More than 16 million Germans have already submitted them - but that's not even half of those who are obliged to do so.
At the same time, criticism of the property tax reform is growing.
The taxpayers' association and the Haus & Grund owners' association want to take action against the design of the new property tax and are planning model lawsuits before the Federal Constitutional Court.
"The various property tax laws, but in particular the federal property tax law, which applies in most federal states, is unconstitutional from our point of view because it contains some elements that are not appropriate.
This includes, for example, preferential treatment for tenants who live in cooperatives, which is completely unfounded," explains Kai Warnecke, President of the Haus & Grund association, to the
MDR
.
Warnecke: "The standard land values are not justiciable"
What the associations also criticize: Owners who have submitted their property tax return receive a so-called property tax assessment from the tax office, against which they must quickly appeal if the values in it are not correct.
However, it is difficult for the owners to check the legality of the new property tax law, Warnecke explains to the broadcaster.
In this context, Warnecke also interferes with the determination of the standard land values.
Because the values are not verifiable: “The standard land values are not justiciable.
There is a committee of experts that simply sets the values and they then determine the tax amount.
That is possible in a banana republic, but not in a constitutional state," Warnecke told
MDR
.
With material from the AFP
