The Free State is extending the deadline for property tax returns on its own.
(Photo: dpa)
Munich, Berlin Bavaria is single-handedly extending the deadline for filing property tax returns. Property owners should have three months more time, i.e. until the end of April, as Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU) said on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting in Munich.
One wants to give relief again, especially for the tax consulting professions. You do not want to annoy anyone, but to carry out the entire tax procedure properly.
Bavaria is reacting to the sluggish submission of the declarations. Most recently, the data from almost a third of all property owners in Bavaria was still missing – although the rates are quite similar nationwide.
Up to and including Monday, more than 4.3 million property tax returns were submitted throughout Bavaria. This corresponds to around 68 percent of the total declarations to be made, as the Ministry of Finance announced on Tuesday.
Originally, the deadline for submitting the new property tax returns was the end of October 2022. This period was then extended throughout Germany up to and including January 31st. There was no further nationwide extension of the deadline until recently. And the Bavarian decision is now very surprising.
Shortly before the expiry of the previous deadline, Füracker had only emphasized that sanctions were not immediately threatened if someone did not submit their property tax return on time. “No one has to worry about a penalty coming tomorrow. Not for the next few days or weeks either,” Füracker said on Bavarian radio on Tuesday morning.
From 2025, the new property tax calculation should apply. The Federal Constitutional Court had demanded this, because the tax offices recently calculated the value of a property on the basis of completely outdated data, from 1935 in East Germany and from 1964 in West Germany. Almost 36 million properties now have to be revalued for the recalculation.
More: Everything you need to know about the property tax reform in our digital dossier