One month until the deadline
Half of the property tax returns are still missing
01/01/2023 12:08 p.m
The deadline for filing property tax returns has been extended once before. But even with more time, many property owners fail to meet their obligation to report the data.
One month before the end of the deadline, the quota for the submission of the property tax return has still not increased noticeably. As the “Welt am Sonntag” reported with reference to the Bavarian State Office for Taxes, which is responsible for the Elster platform, only just under 16 million electronic declarations have been received by the tax offices so far. That’s a good 44 percent.
For the planned real estate tax reform, 36 million properties have to be revalued. According to the Federal Ministry of Finance, the rate of declarations submitted electronically by December 22 was 41.5 percent. In addition, 4.7 percent of the expected declarations had been submitted on paper by then. If the ratio of declarations submitted electronically to those submitted on paper remains the same, around half should still be missing.
The federal and state governments have already extended the deadline by three months to January 31 – initially it was until October 31. The Finance Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Doris Ahnen, has ruled out extending the deadline again. “The deadline for submitting the declarations is January 31, 2023. We assume that the submission rate will continue to improve over the course of January,” said the SPD politician, who is currently chairwoman of the conference of finance ministers of the federal states.
The Haus & Grund owners’ association advises “not to postpone the matter until shortly before the deadline in order to avoid possible server overloads”. Managing Director Younes Frank Ehrhardt recalled problems during data collection at the beginning of July. “In the event of non-submission or late submission of the property tax return, a late fee can be imposed,” he also warned. “If the declaration is not submitted, the tax office can also estimate the tax base.” In both cases, the obligation to submit remains.
In the course of the property tax reform, millions of properties nationwide have to be revalued. Owners of houses, apartments and land must submit a number of data for the declaration. The declaration of determination must be submitted in electronic form to the tax authorities. The paper form is possible in exceptional cases, but takes longer.