When it comes to filing property tax returns, progress in Berlin is still sluggish. The already extended deadline for this expires at the end of January. Nevertheless, only less than half of the eligible Berliners have complied with the obligation to submit the declaration to the tax office, which is to be the basis for the nationwide recalculation of the property tax. “We are now at just over 44 percent,” said the spokesman for the tax authorities, Frederik Bombosch. The “Tagesspiegel” had previously reported.
In particular, the rate is still low for commercial owners, but significantly higher for private house and apartment owners, said Bombosch. Land and real estate owners have to submit the property tax return because the Federal Constitutional Court in 2018 had judged the previous assessment method to be incompatible with the general principle of equality.
The deadline for submission was initially set at the end of October. However, it was extended by three months after it became apparent that things would be tight.
Bombosch said that the time for the letters to remind defaulting Berliners of the obligation to pay the fee has also been postponed to February/March. The financial administration expects costs of around 160,000 euros for sending the letters, according to a response from Finance State Secretary Barbro Dreher to a request from CDU MP Alexander Herrmann, which is available to the German Press Agency. The financial administration assumes that a total of around 863,500 declarations have to be submitted throughout Berlin.
According to the tax authorities, the state of Berlin has joined the majority of the federal states that are implementing the so-called federal model. From 2025 onwards, property tax will be determined based on information such as the year of construction and the standard land value, which are intended to reflect the actual value of the property.
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