New property tax in Leipzig: Who has to pay from 2025 and how much?
New property tax in Leipzig: Who has to pay from 2025 and how much?
In Leipzig, property owners are faced with a fundamental change in property tax regulation. From January 2025, the new property tax will come into force, which should remain the same in total, but will show significant differences in the individual calculation. The city council will determine the rate of the heb this year, which will determine the amount of the individual amounts. This is done within the framework of the statutory property tax reform, which was initiated by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2018.
A central aspect of the new regulation concerns the land value. Torsten Bonew, the city's financial mayor and member of the CDU, explains that the property tax is higher the further a property from the city center and the fewer residential units exist on it. This development will present many homeowners, especially on the outskirts, with additional financial challenges.
Background of the property tax reform
The reason for these changes is complex. So far, the unit value calculation for property tax was based on outdated data from 1935, which led to inequalities. Because while the market value of today's land has increased significantly, the unit values that were used for the tax calculation were outdated and no longer in line with the market. These incorrect foundations have led to the fact that owners of an old farmhouse on the outskirts may have benefited from the low values, while new construction projects are subject to completely different values.
In order to remove these injustices, all property owners in Leipzig had to re-evaluate their real estate at the tax office by early 2023. The responsible Saxon Ministry of Finance recorded over 186,000 cases in which owners had to transmit their property data. Important information such as the type of building, the year of construction and the size of the property was recorded. The landing value that will be the basis for future taxation has risen continuously for years.
The effects are already visible in the different districts. Houses on the outskirts in particular are more stressed due to the larger properties and occasionally lower development density. According to Bonew, this is not just a coincidence, but the result of a targeted approach that includes the increasing land value as a central size in the calculation.
The new evaluation and its consequences
The reform ensures a fundamental redistribution of the tax load. René Hobusch, President of the House and Grund Saxony Association, points out that the Saxons have deliberately decided to shift the property tax burden on rented objects more to self -used real estate. This ensures an inconsistent distribution of the tax burden and will particularly affect those who live in their own four walls.
Currently around 59,000 contradictions are still running against the new tax notices. It remains to be seen whether they can be completely processed until the reform comes into force. The legislator has determined that the contradiction does not postpone the validity of the notices, which is why new notices will be sent without clarification in the coming year.
Hobusch recommends affected owners to counteract the value previously defined by the tax office if the individual ground value was significantly deviated. If such evidence occurs, the property tax could also be lower before the final clarification. The new regulations will continue to employ Leipzig's property owners and could have a reformative influence on the city's entire tax system.