How to deal with increasing property tax burden?

My tripling comes from the "West". But regarding revenue neutrality, I have always assumed it at the municipal level, I don’t even know how I came to that. Good point that of course it can also be at the federal level.

It is at the municipal level. Our city, for example, has split the assessment rate into residential and commercial to ensure that.

Due to municipal autonomy, however, each municipality may choose a higher property tax if it needs more money in its budget due to increased costs. The states and the federal government may express wishes, but the decision lies with the elected municipal representatives (with us, the city council).

Someone with an unrenovated old building here?

Despite the increase in the assessment rate in our municipality (from 3xx to 460 (?)% - not exactly sure, but roughly in this range), we pay only about 150 EUR more property tax per year. Our house is from 1935, modernized in recent years but not fully renovated.

We live in West Germany.

The development of the real estate transfer tax really has nothing to do with East and West. A revaluation was carried out by the tax offices for each owner. It is known that the regions do not work completely uniformly, but that is not a matter of East and West. Each municipality sets a multiplier. This also has nothing to do with East and West, but with its own budget. And even there, it is not a matter of "how well the municipality manages," because many tasks are imposed on the municipalities. In our area, the district levy was increased so much last year that the municipality would have fallen into a budget stabilization procedure without an increase in property and business taxes. Since there are only a few commercial areas available at the same time, but the schools are maintained in a pleasantly good condition, a little more falls on homeowners than before – and also more than elsewhere. It is also clear that every municipality has some possibilities to influence expenses. Everyone can participate in public meetings and have a say. The councilors are volunteers in most municipalities – so citizens like us. There, you can talk to each other on equal terms.

The development of the real estate transfer tax really has nothing to do with East and West.

That is not entirely correct. The valuation goes back to standard values from 1964. That was when the last standard value determination was carried out. However, since no such determination was made in East Germany at that time, the values from 1935 are used there. This was then balanced out by an adjusted multiplier. If the multiplier remains the same with uniform determination, this may lead to different burdens.

If the assessment rate remains the same with uniform determination, this may lead to different burdens.

That is why there is a guideline that municipalities should adjust the assessment rate as far as possible so that tax revenues remain the same. Some individuals are affected by the individual change in both East and West. In municipalities that could no longer manage with the previous tax revenues for budgetary reasons, this guideline could not be implemented – both in East and West.