Property tax: 6544 percent surcharge

When Horst Ziegler looks at his orchard, he vacillates between joy and frustration. Sure, there are 20 trees: apples, pears, cherries, plums, everything. A green idyll, located between his house in Esslingen-Kimmichsweiler and a nature reserve.

But there's also the Baden-Württemberg property tax model, in effect since January, which is the cause of his frustration. When the 83-year-old retiree opened the property tax notice for his orchard, he thought: This can't be true! Instead of the previous 78 euros, he's supposed to pay 5,183 euros this year, a ridiculous increase of 6,544 percent. The self-managed green space is now valued like the land on which his house stands. "But it's not even development land and it's just causing me work."

In the southwest, there have been 1.4 million appeals against the property tax assessments sent out so far. In the vast majority of cases, the constitutionality of the state's property tax law is questioned. 125,000 appeals concern suspected incorrectly calculated property sizes or other assessment errors.

Overall, this poses a problem for the state government. The image of the Swabian home builder (“work hard, build a house”), as sung in a popular song, no longer reflects reality. Today, many can barely afford rent. But homeownership continues to be highly valued.

The Green-Black coalition was particularly keen to do well with the property tax reform demanded by the Federal Constitutional Court. They adopted their own model, in which the size and standard land value of the property alone determine the amount of property tax. The standard land value is determined by on-site appraisal committees; the decisive factor is the property's location. What's written on the tax code is irrelevant. Many states, however, use the federal model, whose calculations are more complex. But even there, there are objections.

Naturally, a reform cannot only produce winners. Especially since municipalities don't want to forgo property tax revenue. Green Party Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann reacted to criticism with some irritation: "If someone has to pay more, they have been paying too little – with the exception of a few exceptions." One must wait a year to see what effect the law has.

The Württemberg Property Owners' Association, however, considers it unconstitutional. And the Baden-Württemberg Tenants' Association complains about the relief for businesses at the expense of housing costs. In Ravensburg, for example, the share of residential property owners in total property tax revenue is rising from 54 to 70 percent.

Now everyone is looking to the courts to determine whether the state law is constitutional. If it is overturned, "we have a huge problem," says Jochen Rupp, the state head of the German Tax Union. "I don't even want to imagine what that would mean for the workload of the tax offices."

Pensioner Horst Ziegler, on the other hand, hopes that his appeal will be successful – or that the entire law will have to be revised.