Why Germany is not making progress in digitization

Berlin For people with their own property, time is running out: At the end of the month, the deadline for all property owners in Germany to submit their tax returns to the tax office ends.

For all landowners? no The federal government itself has until the end of September to complete its own property tax return for federally owned real estate.

The property tax is a particularly impressive example of a phenomenon that can also be observed elsewhere. Politicians are increasingly creating new rules without the administration itself managing to carry out the tasks that arise as a result.

It is often companies that traditionally have a lot of administrative contact that suffer from this slowness. The result: immense paper chaos and great uncertainty as to what can and must be submitted when, where and how.

Three projects show particularly impressively how politics created high demands for companies without creating the necessary conditions themselves.

1. The mess with the electronic cash register