Property owners must submit data to the tax offices by the end of October. There are demands to give them more time.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Land and real estate owners have four months to provide the tax office with data on the new collection of property tax. However, this deadline could possibly be extended, among other things due to technical problems and difficulties with some data. At least that’s what the Union is demanding, and it’s receiving support from tax advisors.
The economic wing of the Union has taken a corresponding decision. “In view of the delays caused by the tax authorities, taxpayers need at least half a year more time to submit the declarations of assessment,” says the paper from the Mittelstands- und Wirtschaftsunion (MIT).
“The deadline for submitting the declarations of determination should be extended by six months. That gives the taxpayers room to breathe,” says Sebastian Brehm (CSU), chairman of the MIT tax commission and budgetary and financial policy spokesman for the CSU state group in the Bundestag.
In view of the problems, tax consultants are also asking for more time. “The four-month period for submitting the property tax assessment declaration was unrealistic from the start,” said Hartmut Schwab, President of the Federal Chamber of Tax Advisors. Taxpayers would have to obtain and update various data. “It can be difficult,” says Schwab.
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In fact, the reform of the property tax is a tour de force. Around 36 million properties have to be revalued. So far, property tax has been calculated on the basis of values from 1935 or 1964. The Federal Constitutional Court had rejected this practice. The necessary reform of the property tax is now being implemented, but the time for this is unevenly distributed: citizens are supposed to provide the tax authorities with the necessary data within four months. The authorities will then calculate the new property tax by the end of 2024, which will be due from 2025.
These different periods of time also annoy the financial policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Markus Herbrand. “Why do citizens have to submit these declarations within such a short time and the state then has more than two years to evaluate this data?” That is “disproportionate and should therefore be changed by an extended response period”.
Herbrand: “I also think it is right to extend the deadline for submitting property tax returns, since a four-month deadline for submitting 36 million returns was too short from the start.”
Elster tax portal temporarily overloaded
Since July 1, citizens have been able to transmit the data to the tax authorities via the free Internet portal Elster. But at first, Elster couldn’t withstand the onslaught. “Due to the enormous interest in the forms for the property tax reform, there are currently restrictions on availability,” said the electronic tax return portal on the first weekend in July. At times, the Elster website was no longer accessible due to maintenance work.
>> Read here: This is how the property tax return works via Elster
“The problems of our state can be seen in the Elster chaos,” says MIT Chairwoman Gitta Connemann (CDU). It shows the sometimes bleak state of digital administration in Germany.
In addition, the state sets wrong priorities to the detriment of citizens and companies. Relief is currently the order of the day. “Right now the state is demanding the data that it has itself,” says Connemann. “And that with an unsuitable instrument in too short a time.”
Apparently, the IT of the financial administration cannot withstand the onslaught of taxpayers, said Chamber of Tax Advisors President Schwab. “In order to provide relief here, you cannot avoid extending the deadline.” Otherwise, the feat of property tax reform will not be possible.
Especially since the authorities apparently have problems providing the necessary data. FDP financial expert Herbrand points out: “The fact that individual federal states are now dependent on sending data by letter to the citizens, who then have to type them into the declarations to be submitted online, shows how much digitization has been overslept in recent years and how big the backlog is that the traffic light coalition has to work through.”
The first federal states have signaled a willingness to talk
However, the finance ministers from the federal states are reacting cautiously. Citizens have until October 31 to submit their property tax returns, said a spokesman for Bavarian Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU). “Now, two weeks after the start, it is far too early to ask for an extension of the deadline,” said the spokesman.
Baden-Württemberg’s Finance Minister Danyal Bayaz (Greens) currently sees no need for an extension of the deadline, but does not rule it out either. “Currently, no extension of the deadline is planned,” said a spokesman. For the property tax, 5.6 million properties would have to be revalued in Baden-Württemberg. That will take time. “But we are not fundamentally closing ourselves off to a debate about extending the deadline,” said the spokesman.
In addition to the extension of the deadline, the economic wing of the Union also wants to ensure that the notifications are initially only issued provisionally. This would make it easier to submit corrections later, said CSU politician Brehm. “The assessment notices should be issued subject to review,” says the MIT decision. Any corrections to the data could then be submitted in a reasonable time. This would relieve the financial administration, owners and tax consultants in the current tense situation.
More: Rising prices: Lindner plans tax breaks for real estate buyers.