By Gunnar Schupelius
Around 850,000 owners are now being forced to submit an enormously complex declaration to the tax office, which is completely superfluous, says Gunnar Schupelius.
Why easy if complicated is another option? This is how you could describe the recalculation of property tax in Berlin.
This tax is levied by the federal states on land and buildings. Landlords pass them on to tenants. The Federal Constitutional Court had requested a recalculation because of outdated data.
Each state goes its own way. In Bavaria, the tax should be calculated solely on the basis of the area. So only the square meters have to be specified there.
In Berlin, that’s not enough. The value of the property, the age and the residential area should also be included in the new calculation. All owners are obliged to submit a declaration of assessment to the tax office via the ELSTER online platform. They only have four months to do this, the period began on July 1st and ends on October 31st.
During this period, they all have to create a complicated set of data, including extracts from the land register, declarations of division and information on garages with and without a land register page, etc. They should also use the search term “BORIS Berlin” to find out the standard land value of their property, which was valid on January 1st, 2022.
Many owners don’t even know how lucky they are because, unlike in Brandenburg, for example, the Berlin government does not send out any information.
Finance Senator Daniel Wesener (Greens) only gave a press release on April 6th. There he advised on “timely preparation”. That’s all.
One could also say that there has never been less citizen service. Because there is not only no information, but also no telephone hotline and no help at all in the event that someone does not get along with the data and with ELSTER and therefore misses the deadline.
But then the tax offices will strike, with late fees or worse, that’s for sure. The taxpayers’ association also fears that many older small-scale owners will not be able to cope with the bureaucracy.
And since we are talking about those who use their property themselves, the question arises as to why they actually have to pay property tax at all? In Berlin, by the way, a particularly large amount, because here the assessment rate was pushed up to the upper limit of 810 percent. In this way, the city takes in 850 million euros per year.
Senator Wesener praises the property tax reform. It closes “a gap in justice,” he claims. Accordingly, those who own valuable property in a good location should pay more taxes, i.e. the “rich”, to put it casually.
But the small owners who have paid off an apartment with great effort and over decades, why should they pay more? Why is there no allowance for them?
Because the red-green-red Senate is not interested in owners. That is the truth, also reflected in the refusal to provide information and assistance to citizens in the recalculation now.
Is Gunnar Schupelius right? Call: 030/2591 73153 or email: [email protected]
