Hamburg is still missing 40,000 property tax returns

Thousands of latecomers submitted their property tax returns in Hamburg after the deadline had expired. According to the tax authority, 17,108 property tax returns have been received by the tax office since February 1. A total of 379,580 declarations have now been submitted, which corresponds to a rate of almost 90 percent. "We are in a very good position in a country comparison," said Finance Senator Andreas Dressel (SPD) of the German Press Agency. Ultimately, however, all explanations are needed.

"Therefore my renewed appeal to all those who have still not submitted three weeks after the deadline: Anyone who wants to avoid late payment penalties, fines or an estimate by the tax office should act immediately," said Dressel.

As an intermediate step, reminders are currently being prepared for defaulting taxpayers, which are to be sent out in the course of March. Recently, there were fewer private real estate owners and more owners of commercial real estate and institutions from which the tax offices had not yet received any declarations.

The finance senator explained that the point at which late payment surcharges or penalties are imposed depends on the individual case. As a possible measure, the tax authority could initiate a procedure to determine a penalty payment or initiate the estimation procedure in the event of non-delivery. In the event of late submission, there is a risk of a late fee of 25 euros per month or part thereof, and in the worst case, failure to submit a fine of 25,000 euros. The amount of the penalty payment depends on the amount of the tax liability to be expected.

In the Hanseatic city, more than 420,000 properties have to be revalued to recalculate the property tax. For a third of the declarations already submitted, notifications of property tax values ​​have already been sent. The notices on measurement amounts and property tax, in which it is then clear what will have to be paid to the tax authorities in the future, should be sent out at the end of 2024 at the earliest. The new property tax will apply from 2025.

The new declarations have become necessary because property tax is to be calculated differently from 2025. The Federal Constitutional Court declared the previous regulation to be unconstitutional in 2018 because the calculation was based on data that was in some cases completely outdated. In Hamburg, data from the 1960s was used, Dressel said at a press conference in January. How outdated some of the data was would also have been shown when comparing the property tax returns that had already been processed with the documents available from the offices.