Owners of apartments, houses and other real estate have a lot to do with the tax office this year - in addition to their ongoing tax matters, they should submit a declaration of assessment of their property by October, on the basis of which the newly regulated property tax will be levied from 2025 onwards.

Because things have not been going smoothly so far, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) is considering extending the deadline.

"You may have to reserve the right to do something about the deadlines again," said Lindner in a public discussion at the federal government's "Open Day" on Saturday in Berlin.

The minister thus confirmed considerations that he had first hinted at in a FAZ interview at the end of July.

When asked about complaints from owners and tax consultants, Lindner said: "I'm also worried about how things are currently going." He is therefore continuously informed about the situation in the ministry.

Control portal collapsed

A total of 36 million properties are affected by the reassessment of the tax.

This was made necessary by a judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court in 2018, which was still legally implemented by the old governing coalition.

The start of the determinations was also bumpy because shortly after the start of the period at the beginning of July, the electronic tax portal "Elster" collapsed under the heavy rush, when many citizens apparently wanted to start with the declaration of determination immediately after activation.

The situation is now completely different, as a survey by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper among the finance ministries and authorities of the 16 federal states revealed: Germany-wide only about 10 percent of the required declarations have been received, although the four-month submission deadline has now expired almost halfway .

A number of countries explained the low numbers by saying that taxpayers have other priorities during the holiday period and that motivation will probably increase towards the end of the period.

Some, such as Thuringia, openly described the response rates – 7.4 percent there by mid-August – as “unsatisfactory”.

However, the required property tax return is not only challenging because of the temporary difficulty in accessing the online portal.

Information is required that not every owner has at hand - including land values ​​or parcel numbers, which often but not always have to be entered in the form of a decimal fraction on the form.

The majority of the federal states apply the finely differentiated federal model for the new property tax.

Only four, including Hesse, use the option of a simplified state solution in the form of a surface model.

The focus here is on the plot or building area, so information about the standard land value and year of construction of the building is therefore not necessary.