More than a third of property owners still have to submit their property tax returns by Tuesday. Anyone who misses the deadline should be prepared for sanctions from the tax office. At least not immediately.
Owners of real estate and land only have a few days to submit the unloved tax return for property tax. The submission deadline finally expires on January 31st. Around 60 percent of taxpayers have already submitted them, so many have yet to submit them.
After all, those who have submitted can usually count on rapid processing. The tax offices are apparently working at full speed. This was the result of a survey by "Capital" among all 16 finance ministries of the federal states in the autumn.
So far, hundreds of thousands of assessments of the so-called property tax value have been issued by the tax authorities and sent to the property owners. The property tax value forms the basis for calculating the property tax and largely determines how much property owners will have to pay from January 2025. A total of 36 million properties in Germany have to be revalued.
It is unrealistic that all taxpayers will have submitted their declarations on time. It is just as unlikely that the deadline will be extended again, as it has already been extended nationwide for everyone from October 31st to January 31st.
Union MPs and the taxpayers' association are calling for a further delay, but according to the authorities, this is not possible due to the tight schedule for calculating the new property tax.
In most cases, however, the tax offices should be accommodating with delays. Because property tax laws are new law, many tax authorities want to start by sending reminders to owners. These are sent out about four weeks after the deadline, i.e. at the end of February or beginning of March.
In principle, taxpayers who cannot submit a tax return on time must ask the responsible tax office for an extension of the deadline. However, the responsible clerk decides whether the application will be granted. According to the State Office for Taxes in Bavaria, there should only be a personal extension of the deadline for individual owners in the case of property tax "in justified cases".
Tax offices have various options for sanctioning missing or incorrect tax returns: In the case of incorrect information or a complete lack of tax return, they can impose a late taxpayer penalty. This is often several hundred euros. If there is still nothing, they can also impose a penalty payment.
"The tax authorities always check the appropriateness and proportionality of their measures in individual cases," said the Bavarian State Office for Taxes. "Of course, they also take into account the duration of the submission deadline and the fact that the property tax is a new law."
Anyone who categorically refuses to submit a declaration or provides incorrect information must expect an estimate from the tax office. This is the ultima ratio of the authorities. As a rule, the estimate happens to the detriment of the property owner, because the tax office invests the property value rather generously.
This text first appeared on Capital
