How to correctly fill out the property tax assessment declaration

You're probably wondering why I'm writing about tax topics here?! Honestly: because it surprises me again and again when the state wants to show off with its "digital offerings", but then once again....I'm sorry to have to say it...messes it up. The latest example got on my nerves so badly several times that I wanted to write about it.

At the beginning of June 2022, like probably millions of other people in Germany, I received a request to submit my declaration for the assessment of property tax (Feststellungserklärung zur Bemessung der Grundsteuer). All of it completely digital via Elster. At first surprised and yet pleased that I was supposed to do everything digitally, I was hit by disillusionment when I came across the workflow behind it. But before we get to the actual process, I asked myself: Why do I still have to enter so much data at all when the authorities actually have EVERYTHING already?

Why do I have to enter my personal data, tax numbers, marriage dates and much more into a portal when the tax office has had this data for umpteen years? Why, dear state? Why hasn't this data long been available to every authority? I really don't get it anymore. Is there a plausible reason for this that I don't know about?

The whole process shows how important user tests are. You should take any random people, hand them the letter and say "go ahead". You would be surprised by the feedback you get. I don't think anyone thought of the thousands of elderly people who now have to go through this process. Is everything supposed to be extra complicated so that tax advisors have something to do? The thought crossed my mind a few times, but that can't be the point of digitalization if, in the end, only a few people understand the process directly. Surely the goal should be that citizens can do it themselves. But let's start at the very beginning.

The letter points out that you need an Elster account. Some people won't have one, so they have to create a user account. As a private individual, you can choose between a certificate file and your ID card. Leaving security aside, I had to explain the difference and the procedure to everyone in my family. Let's see how many of them still have their certificate file next year.

Once you have your tax number and tax identification number at hand, you have to wait a few days, because you receive an access key via email+mail. Only then can you finally get into your Elster portal.

How can it be that, even today, even as a digitally savvy person, you so often think "Huh...what do they mean? Where is the data now?". When I log in, I get straight to the "Mein Elster" overview. At this point I wondered why I don't see a big button right here saying "Fill out property tax assessment declaration". According to Statista, 50.5% of people in Germany own residential property and therefore also a plot of land or part of one. That means millions of letters were sent out and everyone has to go through the same process. Apart from the fact that letters still have to be sent, surely the aim should be to make this process as simple as possible. I especially feel sorry for the farmers who have to fill out this process for umpteen of their fields.

So I was surprised that I only saw such a notice after clicking on "Elster". But it still doesn't take you to the form, only to an explanation page first (good in principle).

I was still looking for the actual declaration I had to fill out. A hint was then given in the explanatory video:

Formulare & Leistungen > Grundsteuer > Erklärung zur Feststellung der Grundsteuer. What triggered me about this process is the fact that the form is called "Feststellung zur [...]" (assessment of [...]). The letter from the tax office also says that you should fill out the Feststellungserklärung (assessment declaration). So in the forms menu you instinctively click on the "Feststellungen" (assessments) tab, only to find that the forms stored there are not the right ones. Only under the "Grundsteuer" (property tax) tab do you finally find it. That, too, could have been solved more intuitively.

You should know in advance that, as the owner of a property (not agricultural or forestry land), you have to select the Hauptvordruck (GW1) (main form) AND the Anlage Grundstück (GW2) (property annex). In principle, I think it's good that every field has blue circles with white question marks - you need them, too. But more on that later.

The general information is relatively self-explanatory, but here I ask myself: why do I have to enter general information like my personal data again and again? Why doesn't a personalized link take me to an input screen where I only have to check the information instead of entering everything again?

In the annex, you have to enter standard land values. Good that the description includes a link to the corresponding portal with the standard land values. Bad that, once again, I'm not taken directly to the URL I actually need: https://www.gutachterausschuesse-bw.de/borisbw/?lang=en

So you first have to click your way through menus again. Here, too, a big button would be needed to send the millions of users to the right place straight away. At this point I also wondered once again why the different federal states don't use a uniform GIS (geographic information system), but oh well - that's another construction site.

In my case, unfortunately, I didn't get any information about the standard land values, because they simply aren't available yet. So at this point it's simply not possible to complete your declaration. When I asked the responsible expert committee, I was told in a friendly way that they would be published at the end of July/beginning of August. Here, too, I wondered how that can be. It reveals the enormous weakness that basic data simply hasn't been maintained and updated for years.

Once you have entered all the data, you click one last time on "Prüfen der Eingabe" (check input). If everything has been entered correctly, the assessment declaration can be sent right away. In my case, the only notice was that the information on the Flur (cadastral district) was still missing. But this information de facto doesn't exist, so the form can also be sent without it.

It is good, right and important that declarations like this have to be filled out purely digitally! I also think it's absolutely correct that paper submissions are no longer allowed - after all, everyone (not just the authorities) has to come to terms with the fact that data on paper doesn't scale.

But I so often asked myself why the process was made so unnecessarily complicated and set up so poorly from a user experience point of view.

On top of that, the servers went down over the weekend.

View post on X

For the future, I would therefore recommend to the authorities:

1. Existing master data simply has to be stored already. It can't be that you request data electronically from an authority, receive it by mail as an extract from the system, only to have to enter it all over again. It simply has to become the case that you only correct deviations instead of entering everything again and again.
2. Links that refer to external content should lead directly to where the information can actually be found.
3. It is absolutely necessary to have uniform standards at the federal level. These different individual solutions (for example GIS systems) per federal state are a disaster for the end user.
4. The whole workflow has to be played through with users of different age groups. Then you would notice how user-unfriendly it is in some places. The goal must not be that only tax advisors can fill out something like this. Simplicity is what counts!

For private property (condominiums, houses), the Ministry of Finance has set up its own service for submitting the assessment declaration. A little irony: here, too, not all federal states take part. But it is supposed to be more intuitive to fill out. I haven't tested that yet, though.

What were your experiences, or do you have more tips/advice?