Property tax: Millions must submit an additional tax return

Anyone who has a house, an apartment or property pays property tax year after year.It will not be reformed until 2025, but is already ensuring that owners have to work to work on the authorities.

In 2022, house and property owners have given a special obligation: Because millions of land are re-evaluated, they must submit their own tax return to the tax office.More precisely: an explanation to determine the property tax value.As the real estate association Germany (IVD) reports, this should happen between July 1 and October 31, 2022-and exclusively electronically using the Elster procedure.

Anyone who is not yet registered with Elster, the free online tax software of the tax offices, should take care of it in good time.Alternatively, owners can also instruct a tax advisor.Read here when a tax advisor is worth it for you.

Which owner a tax return must submit

Those affected either receive mail from their tax office, which they ask for submitting the tax return, or are publicly informed about a so -called general order.The obligation concerns owners of built-up and undeveloped land, condominiums as well as companies in agriculture and forestry.According to the Federal Ministry of Finance, around 36 million "economic units" are concerned, which makes the project one of the largest projects in the tax administration in German post -war history.

The background is a decision by the 2018 Federal Constitutional Court, which had declared the previous calculation of property tax for unconstitutional.The Federal Government then agreed on a property tax reform that only comes into force on January 1, 2025, but is already causing work.

The tax offices are no longer allowed to use the outdated assessment bases from 1935 (East) and 1964 (West), but have to renew their data records in order to re -evaluate each individual property - and that takes years.

Die Grundsteuer: Die Grundsteuer ist eine Steuer auf den Besitz von Grundstücken und Gebäuden. Anders als die Grunderwerbssteuer wird sie jedes Jahr fällig. Wie viel man zahlt, ist abhängig vom Wohnort, dem Grundstück und dem Gebäude. Bei den meisten Wohnungseigentümern geht es um einige Hundert Euro im Jahr, Besitzer von Mietshäusern müssen dagegen oft vierstellige Beträge zahlen. Diese können sie auf die Mieter umlegen.

Federal states regulate property tax differently

It is not regulated by nationwide which data the owners must provide in the tax return.The Bundestag had decided on the so -called federal model in 2019, but the federal states were allowed to deviate from it and develop their own system.Five countries have made use of this opening clause, the rest largely follows the concept of the federal government.

Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia have completely joined the federal government.Saxony and the Saarland also use the federal model, but differ in the amount of the tax measurement figures.

Gut zu wissen: Die landeseigenen Modelle gelten vor allem für Grundvermögen, also bebaute und unbebaute Grundstücke, die nicht der Land- und Forstwirtschaft dienen (sogenannte Grundsteuer B).

In all of these eleven federal states, the tax calculation is based on the value of the soil, a statistically determined rent, on the property area, the living space and the type and age of the building.Owners must therefore state this data in the tax return.

You can find out the landscape value via the landscape value information system.You also have to specify the district and parcel as the owner.The district is noted in the land register and denotes the area in which the property is located.It consists of several so -called corridors, which in turn consist of different properties or parcels.A plot of land can include several parcels.Read here how you get insight into the land register.

In terms of rent, the same value applies to residential property as for rental residential plots.A garage parking space- whether single or underground car park- has a solid cold rental of 35 euros.

Anyone who lives in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, Hesse or Lower Saxony, i.e. a federal state that has not taken over the federal model, only has to provide information about the areas of the property and the building as well as the location of the property.

This is how the property tax is calculated

The tax offices then determine the property tax value based on this data, which is multiplied by a legally stipulated tax measuring number.This results in the property tax measurement amount.The tax offices usually send the owners notices about the property tax value and the property tax measurement amount.These do not contain any payment requests.

Then the offices then offset the data with the lifting rates of the municipalities, which continue to have the last word about the amount of property tax.The lifting rates make up a lot and vary from community to community.

Formel zur Berechnung der Grundsteuer: Grundsteuer = Grundsteuerwert x Steuermesszahl x Hebesatz

In the past year, the employer -based institute of the German economy (IW) determined that the amount of property tax for a house with a living space of 125 square meters and a 500 square meter property in the 100 largest German cities between 323 euros (Gütersloh) and 771 euros (Witten) varied in the year.Read more about the influence of the rate on property tax here.

The city or municipality informs how high the new property tax is ultimately for the owners.The rate should be adjusted in such a way that the property tax reform does not change the income for the municipalities, but individual taxpayers should pay more or less property tax than before.The newly calculated property tax is due from 2025.

Remark of the editorial team: In an earlier version of this article, it was said that homeowners could also commission income tax relief associations with the declaration of determination.However, these are not authorized.