Property tax reform in Germany

In Germany, a reform of the property tax has been discussed for 20 years now; this is one of the most difficult political reform issues of all. On April 10, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the current property tax to be unconstitutional and called for a reform that must be passed into law by the end of 2019.

In this context, the CLR (formerly ZBF-UCB) was one of the co-founders of the initiative "Property Tax: Contemporary!" in Germany (2012). Since 2012, with a view to the upcoming property tax reform, this initiative has been working to transform the property tax into a land value tax. Supporters of the initiative include NABU, BUND, Deutsche Umwelthilfe, the Institute of German Economy in Cologne, Deutsche Mietverbund and many others. The office of the initiative is located at NABU in Berlin. The initiative has succeeded in ensuring that land value tax is now being discussed in the media and in politics as a serious reform option - against the resistance of the party-political establishment. The outcome of the property tax reform, however, is currently completely open.

The following publications have resulted from the project so far (selection):

• Dirk Löhr (2019): Grundsteuerreform – Abschaffung der Umlagefähigkeit? In: Betriebs-Berater 3/2019, pp. 91-97.
• Dirk Löhr (2018): Grundsteuerreform: Chance für die nachhaltige Siedlungsentwicklung? In: G. Meinel, U. Schumacher, M. Behnisch, T. Krüger (eds.): Flächennutzungsmonitoring X – Flächenpolitik-Flächenmanagement-Indikatoren, Berlin, pp. 3-11.
• Ulrich Kriese, Dirk Löhr (2018): with Ulrich Kriese: Grundsteuerreform in Zeiten und Räumen mit steigenden Bodenwerten: Modellanalyse, Bewertung, Empfehlungen. In: Wohnungswirtschaft und Mietrecht, volume 71, 6/2018, pp. 321–329.