Defaulting owners in Lower Saxony should receive a reminder letter if they do not submit their property tax return. (Symbolic image) © Peter Schickert/Imago
Millions of owners in Germany have not yet filed their property tax returns. One federal state has already started issuing warnings and also announced penalties: Lower Saxony.
Munich – Millions of property tax returns are still missing nationwide. In Bavaria, for example, around 900,000 property tax returns have not yet been submitted at the beginning of May, despite the extended submission deadline. In the Free State, the owners had until the end of April to submit the levy, in the other federal states they had to be submitted by 31 January.
Property tax: Reminder letter to defaulting owners in Lower Saxony
But not submitting the property tax return can be expensive: Because the tax offices can charge defaulting owners late fees. One federal state has already started issuing warnings and also announced penalties: Lower Saxony. According to information from NDR, the approximately 500,000 defaulting owners will receive reminders there from Monday (15.05.2023).
Anyone who still does not respond to the submission of their property tax return after the reminder letter must expect a delay surcharge of 25 euros per month – retroactively from 1 February. So if you continue to hesitate with the delivery, you will quickly accumulate fines of over a hundred euros.
Lower Saxony: Delay surcharge in case of non-reaction
So far, according to NDR, about 86 percent of owners in Lower Saxony have submitted their declaration. The remaining 14 percent have little choice but to make up for it as quickly as possible. Because hopes that the property tax reform will be overturned, the Lower Saxony do not need to make: In their state, there are so far no model lawsuits against the new calculation of the property tax. Although owners' associations have filed model lawsuits in other federal states, the affected states use different property tax models than Lower Saxony. According to experts, the Lower Saxony model is considered "comprehensible".
From 2025, property tax in Germany is to be recalculated. As part of this reform, almost 36 million properties nationwide will therefore have to be revalued with the help of owner information. Property tax is one of the most important sources of income for municipalities. How much the individual owners will have to pay in the future is still open – this depends crucially on the so-called assessment rates of the municipalities.
With material from dpa
