Property tax: Deadline expired, case closed?

All owners of real estate in Germany have by now delivered the required information to the tax office, obtained a deferral or received assistance in filing their tax return. Is the issue finally over? No, says the Taxpayers' Association: there will be model lawsuits because "the federal model is unconstitutional!"

The constitutional lawyer Prof. Dr. Gregor Kirchhof has prepared a legal opinion on behalf of the German Taxpayers' Association and Haus & Grund Germany. The expert opinion is now to serve as the basis for the intended model lawsuits against the federal model, which applies in eleven federal states.

According to the expert opinion, the following decisive doubts exist about the constitutionality of the federal model.

In the federal model, the land tax is based on the value of land. However, the federal government has not created its own valuation system for the land tax, although the Federal Constitutional Court has expressly demanded such a system. - The underlying standard land values are not very comparable. Example Berlin: The sought-after residential location Wannsee had a standard land value of 1,500 as of 1 January 2022. In the less attractive location Neukölln, the value is a good double: 3,200. -

Generalisations violate the Basic Law. - The federal model draws on a great many parameters. The federal government has developed an extremely complex calculation that is difficult to apply in mass procedures. - Property taxpayers are burdened with overly burdensome obligations to cooperate for no good reason. This violates fundamental rights! - Individual circumstances are not taken into account. These include building encumbrances, monument protection requirements, immissions, building defects or a particularly good state of preservation. - Relevant parameters are disregarded contrary to equality. - The actual tax burden is not known until the municipalities have decided on the assessment rates. By then, however, most of the basic assessments will already be final. A legal loophole is looming! - The assessment according to the federal model structurally causes more than twice the financial burden for those affected compared to the simpler models in Bavaria, Hamburg, Hesse and Lower Saxony.

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