Property tax return: Always new problems – there is an alternative to the online tax office Elster
The property tax 2022 presents many property owners with a challenge. Because the submission of the electronic declaration with Elster often snags, eleven federal states offer an alternative way. We tell you here what advantages this offers.
Because of the property tax reform, around 36 million properties across Germany have to be revalued. As a result, millions of property owners have had to submit their property tax returns electronically since the beginning of July.
The tax authorities have now set up another internet portal for this purpose, as the Association of Taxpayers Germany informs. As an alternative to the Elster tax platform, an additional portal for private owners has been available since the beginning of July.
New website from the tax office
On the page Grundsteuererklaerung-fuer-privateigentum.de (more information at CHIP.de), private owners in the eleven federal states that are currently participating in the federal model can submit their property tax returns:
- Berlin
- Brandenburg
- Bremen
- Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- North Rhine-Westphalia
- Rhineland-Palatinate
- Saarland
- Saxony
- Saxony-Anhalt
- Schleswig Holstein
- Thuringia
If owners are unsure whether they can use the portal, they can click through a short questionnaire on the website. This way you will quickly know whether the effort is actually worth it.
“The advantage is that no Elster certificate is required to submit the declaration,” says Daniela Karbe-Gessler from the Taxpayers’ Association. The information can be entered directly on the homepage.
How to use the platform
In order to submit the property tax return in the browser, you must first register with the platform by email. To do this, click the confirmation link in the message you receive from the website.
After that, you need to apply for an unlock code to identify yourself. Enter your tax ID from the tax office here. You should carry out this step right at the beginning, because it takes between seven and 14 days for the code to be sent – but you can already process the tax return in the meantime. Gather the following information:
- size of the property
- Land register page number (if available), district, corridor, parcel
- For condominiums: co-ownership share in the property
- Tax number / file number of the property
- ground value
- Exact year of construction of the building (from a year of construction of 1949)
- living space
- Number of garage parking spaces
- Contact details of the owners and their shares in the property.
Prepare documents
Once the code is there, owners of detached or semi-detached houses, condominiums and vacant lots are guided through the individual mandatory details. In addition, reference is made to the corresponding portals of the federal states for determining the standard land values.
According to the taxpayers’ association, anyone who provides an address in Brandenburg will receive direct information on the standard land value and size of the area. Help texts provide additional input support.
According to Karbe-Gessler, it is recommended that owners have their information letter from the tax office, their tax ID and, if applicable, their land register data. Then the entries are completed in a few minutes.
Please pay attention to the following: If you save the property tax return and want to edit it later, you must do this on the same device and with the same browser. The information is stored in a cookie – so deactivate any cookie blockers for this platform if you use one.
(with DPA content)
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