Property tax rises: Expert expects “across the board additional burden” due to higher assessment rates

The new property tax could lead to higher costs for many owners.

An expert expects “across the board” with rising assessment rates.

Munich – Many German landowners are still struggling to fill out their property tax returns.

This will be due on January 31st.

The background to this is the revaluation of 36 million German properties.

Those who have already submitted the forms may even have received a first letter from the tax office.

This then contains the new property tax amount, which, multiplied by the assessment rate of the local municipality, results in the new property tax amount.

Property tax: assessment rates are expected to increase

How high the tax will be in the future ultimately depends on the decisions of the municipalities.

And there are already gloomy forecasts.

Hans Reinold Horst, state chairman of the Haus & Grund owners’ association in Lower Saxony, is certain that property owners will have to dig much deeper into their pockets from 2025 – when the new property tax has to be paid.

"There will be an additional burden across the board due to the new property tax - above all due to adjusted assessment rates," he makes clear to

.

According to Horst, the trend is towards a “nationwide increase in prices”.

The property tax is one of the most important sources of income for municipalities.

According to the Federal Ministry of Finance, the levy flushes almost 15 billion euros into the coffers of the municipalities every year.

The funds are used to finance schools and daycare centers, among other things, but also swimming pools and libraries or cycle paths and bridges.

"There has not yet been a tax reform where the state would not have counted on being rich"

"In my opinion, due to the tight budgets of the cities and municipalities, the assessment rates will go up rather than down, even if the law provides for 'revenue neutrality'," Horst makes clear to the online portal.

Because, according to the legislator, the communities should not suddenly earn significantly more with the new property tax than before the reform.

However, Horst raises doubts here: "There has not yet been a tax reform where the state would not have counted on being rich," he told

.

But how high can the tax rate actually be?

According to data from the Federal Statistical Office, the municipalities of Oberickelsheim and Meinheim took the top spots in Bavaria with a collection rate of 650 percent each in 2021.

You can read the exact values ​​for the individual municipalities on our map:

But it goes even higher.

In 2021, the collection rate for property tax B in Berlin was 810 percent.

List of rubrics: © Oliver Berg/dpa