At the end of the submission deadline: The property tax return leaves a few puzzles

The relationship between the state and its citizens can be studied in an exemplary manner using the property tax.

One demands something, the other has to deliver.

It's an up and down.

The fact that collecting the funds involves some effort is often overlooked.

But that is part of the system.

The tax state demands the best of citizens and companies – their money and their time.

Many spend many hours each year completing income tax returns.

Others pay big bucks for professional help.

But that's not all: Some are even obliged to take work off the tax office, even though it's not about their income: Employers have to calculate and pay wage tax just because they employ people.

Banks have to laboriously determine the withholding tax and transfer it to the tax authorities in order to relieve investors and tax officials.

Property tax has been making headlines for a few months.

Around 36 million properties have to be revalued after the Federal Constitutional Court has irrefutably established the obvious: that the historical unit values ​​from 1964 in the West and 1935 in the East no longer have anything to do with today's reality and are therefore not compatible with the Basic Law .

That was in 2018. The court gave the legislature until the end of 2019 for a new regulation - and the tax authorities even five more years to prepare for the associated changes.

Some states take the opportunity to regulate property tax within their borders according to their own ideas, deviating from federal law.

Defaulters will stay

The judges in the red robes were generous to the Treasury, unlike the Treasury to those affected.

The tax authorities planned just four months in which the owners should submit their declarations.

It was only when it became obvious that this deadline would be exceeded by the tens of millions that it was extended by another three months to the end of January 2023. At the start of this year, it was alarming that only about half of the declarations had been received.

One shouldn't overestimate that.

Some need the time pressure to become active themselves.

Also, some tax consultants may not send the completed form until the appointment, so that the completion rate should increase significantly.

But defaulters remain.

They are immediately reminded, admonished, driven with surcharges.

If all else fails, your property will be valued by the tax office, which is unlikely to be of any benefit to the owners concerned.

This is also not unusual in the tax state.

Land is now owned by the state itself.

Very few countries have pragmatically regulated that no declarations are to be submitted for tax-exempt properties (mostly public property in the public interest).

Others have failed.

And everywhere, of course, for real estate in public ownership that is not tax-exempt, appropriate declarations are to be made.

There is good news from Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, they apparently managed to do it all in time.

Gods are allowed more than cattle

But that doesn't seem to have worked everywhere, to put it mildly.

The federal government, but also some states and some large cities will probably not meet the deadline.

The ancient Romans already knew what that means: gods are allowed more than cattle.

Today that means: what applies to the citizen sometimes doesn't bother the state authorities if they themselves are affected.

Are the declarations difficult or easy to fill in?

That's where the assessments differ.

There are certainly a number of factors that play a role: the support from the countries, the basic disposition to the laptop and to the tax elster, the individual ability to suffer.

Anyone who has submitted will be notified at some point.

One or the other has already received mail from the tax office.

It tells him what the property is worth under the new property tax and what the new tax base is.

This is important and at the same time not very meaningful, because it is only the basis for the future load.

Unfortunately, this decision does not yet say how high the real estate tax will actually be from the year after next.

The decisive factor here is the assessment rate, which is the tax rate, so to speak.

The municipalities will determine that – probably not until the end of 2024. So there are still a few months left to puzzle over.

You can always get angry.

But it doesn't bring anything either.