The need for advice on the declaration of property tax is still great in Thuringia. Up until now, private real estate owners in particular have transmitted their data to the tax authorities.
Erfurt (dpa/th) - In Thuringia, around 197,800 declarations on property tax have been submitted so far. That corresponds to about 14 percent of the expected 1.5 million statements, as the Ministry of Finance told the German Press Agency. "We are in the lower third of the national average, but we are still satisfied with the previous delivery behavior," said ministry spokesman Uwe Büchner. A general extension of the deadline is therefore not considered necessary.
According to Büchner, the receipt in October is decisive. Many companies and tax consultants have not yet submitted any or only very few declarations. The data received so far has mainly come from private property owners. In addition, there are still many declarations to be made, especially in the area of agriculture and forestry, since consultation with the tenants is necessary. "In this respect, we are assuming a concentrated input by the end of the deadline."
The declarations are necessary because of the property tax reform. If the submission deadline is missed, there is a risk of late surcharges or coercive measures from the tax authorities. Among other things, the year of construction, living space and standard land values must be specified. Based on this data, the property tax is recalculated. Property owners will then have to pay these at the beginning of 2025.
According to the ministry, the hotline for property tax is still well used. Although fewer calls are now coming in, the quality of the questions has changed in the meantime. As a result, the phone calls now lasted much longer, which again led to long waiting times on the hotline. Many callers turned to the tax office with error messages from the online tax portal Elster or had questions about the individual classifications in the declaration form, it said.
At peak times, the hotline received up to 20,000 calls on some days. Most recently, the number of daily calls was between 3,000 and 5,000.
