New property tax 2022 what is coming to us

1.) Will the tax investigator personally check with you whether you might have made a false statement? 2.) Can't the guest room simply be the storage room with the old stored bed? 3.) And now comes the catch. No matter how you answer, you are always acting unlawfully or just don't be so afraid. Because not declaring a guest room is of course not correct, but this becomes irrelevant since your guest room itself is unlawful. Because you cannot let strangers sleep in a NON-living room due to the height. What if there is a fire? Who will probably be liable if the escape route is too long? What can happen there? -Irony off- Many have these areas in the attic that are not suitable as living spaces but are also developed. How you evaluate that is up to you. But either it is living space and thus an unauthorized living room or it is not a living room where an old bed stands, which is not used. You decide!

The trend is also that it is more of a storage room. It is hardly used, certainly not by strangers. If at all, family stays there overnight, more often in the past, but now everyone lives nearby again. So the future usage scenario is actually more of a storage room for the discarded bed.

What do you think?

My experience with various declarations: It simply passes through the tax office. No matter what you write - there are not hundreds of thousands of inspectors walking around checking millions of apartments, rental buildings, and single-family homes. So make the declaration to the best of your knowledge and belief and that's that...

A little tip, don't give the task for the explanation to the tax advisor and do it yourself. That way you can save a lot of money! With the tax advisor, it turns into a rip-off.

A little tip, don’t give the task of the declaration to the tax advisor and do it yourself. That way you can save a lot of money! With the tax advisor, it becomes a rip-off.

For a run-of-the-mill house, which might even be newly built, that probably makes sense. My declaration was done quite quickly.
But as soon as it’s not a run-of-the-mill house, it can quickly turn into a mess. The worst thing is, this is the basic notice for all property tax notices in the future. If something is wrong here and you only check in 2025 when the payment is due, then it’s too late to file an objection.

To give an example from practice:
I have just written an objection together with my mother for a property of my parents, because from our point of view the notice was full of errors.
Both my mother as a former head of department at the tax office, and I as a trained tax specialist can read and basically understand tax laws. However, since there is no case law yet on this part of the Valuation Act, it was extremely difficult for us to refute the assessment by the tax office and then make a proper classification ourselves.

It was about a simple non-buildable garden plot with a €2,500 garden shed and a garage from the 1970s.

The plot was assessed at full standard land value, although the city certified it as non-buildable.
For me it was clear that this could not be correct.
I researched extensively whether there were any exceptional circumstances to deviate from the appraisers’ valuations.
But according to current legislation, this apparently is even lawful, although the press reports that it will probably lead to a wave of lawsuits.

The €2,500 wooden garden shed was assessed as a single-family house with flat-rate construction costs of a single-family house and the depreciation was set over 80! years. The stupid thing is, in annex 42 of the Valuation Act there is not even a classification as a garden shed and nothing that would even remotely describe it. According to the notice, the 16m² garden shed was suddenly worth well over €20,000.

Those were just 2 points out of many that, in our opinion, could not be correct.
The tax offices here have had to massively create positions and quickly train career changers. This leads to the fact that the processors cannot properly classify such properties due to lack of experience.

Now I imagine my mother-in-law, who has several mixed-use properties, where there is probably not even proper documentation of the square meters. Since it currently has no impact, not much attention is paid to it. But by 2025 at the latest, the big spectacle will come when the (much too high) property tax notices arrive.
And if one day the houses are inherited by my wife and her sister, then they will have to continue paying the high property taxes.

It was about a simple non-buildable garden plot with a €2500 garden shed and a garage from the 70s.

The plot was valued at full standard land value, although the city certifies it as non-buildable.

Is the area registered as residential building land in Boris or not? The standard land value must, of course, correspond to the type of area/use. If it really is garden land and a standard land value for residential development is stored, that is the mistake.