New property tax: a political debacle with an announcement

The Federal Constitutional Court decided in 2018: German property tax on real estate is unconstitutional. A reform was needed. On June 27, 2019, the then Federal Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz promised the German in the Bundestag: “The reform should not increase the tax revenue as a whole.” That means: The tax authorities will re -evaluate the real estate and distribute the levies more fairly. But he won’t get his bags.

With the reform, an important requirement of the republic was ignored: the uniformity of the living conditions. Because by changing the Basic Law, the federal states can now issue their own property tax laws, and everyone does this in their own way. Since January 1, 2025, the new property tax notices have been out to the property owners. And it is becoming apparent that even the current procedures can hardly meet the ideas of the highest court of equal taxation.

The majority of the notices fail, as a survey of WISO tax has uncovered. The manufacturer of tax software has evaluated 46,000 cases that largely map the German population structure. The result: Around two thirds of those affected pay significantly more than before. On the other hand, only a good quarter is relieved, with almost seven percent the old one stays the same. The bottom line can never be new.

The differences between the countries are violent. On average, the additional load of the owners is 84.5 percent. But in Schleswig-Holstein it is only 54.7 percent, while Berliners are 116.8 percent more. Among other things, this is due to the fact that not all municipalities have reduced their lifting rates so that it leads to a neutrality.

No question that the constitutional judges were right: it was necessary to re -evaluate the 36 million properties and buildings in Germany. The unit values ​​that served as the basis were hopelessly outdated. For example, you know it from big cities: former cheap workers’ settlements have become hip and popular, sinfully expensive residential areas. The old sentences had nothing to do with the reality of the real estate market.

Some rejoice: What should be bad about the higher property tax, the rich property owners are finally asked to checkout! But that is too short. The property tax is a property tax, not a hidden property tax. It taxes the property of property, regardless of the value of a person’s total assets. In addition, she often hits the tenants hard, because the landlord can put the property tax on it as the “public burden of the property”, which is usually done.

So if you want the concrete millionaires on the collar, you should cash in somewhere else, for example with real estate transfer tax, inheritance tax or a real wealth tax. Scholars such as the economist Gerhard Graf consider property tax to be non -constitutional even in a reformed form, since it continues to violate the equality requirement. Graf even demands to abolish it completely because the procedure is fundamentally out of date.

In any case, it will be urgently needed that the constitutional court looks again at the reformed property tax. It apparently affects classic forms of living such as single -family houses or building plots that are also looking for young families for self -use. The established villa district, on the other hand, get away comparatively lightly.

The property tax volume has increased drastically in recent years, in 2023 it was 15.5 billion euros. And so it should apparently go on. So far, however, over seven million owners have lodged an objection to their new property tax notices nationwide. Many model suits against the country’s own taxation process are already pending. It is quite conceivable that black and red will still have to cope with another massive boulder in this election period: a reassessment, possibly repayments. It would only be fair.