Berlin’s tax offices consistently outperform their counterparts across Germany, a new analysis reveals, highlighting persistent inefficiencies within the national tax system and fueling calls for radical reform. A comprehensive survey of nearly 400,000 tax returns submitted through the online platform Lohnsteuer-kompakt, as reported by “Welt am Sonntag”, indicates that Berlin residents waited an average of 46 days for their tax assessments last year. This is marginally less than Hamburg and Saxony and significantly faster than Bremen, where citizens faced a 74-day wait.
The data demonstrates a national average processing time of 50 days, a slight improvement from 2024 and a notable reduction of seven days compared to 2023. The latter period was heavily burdened by pandemic-related special tasks and the impending reform of property taxes, which caused significant backlogs. While the backlog appears to have cleared, the pace remains slower than the 49-day average observed in 2021.
The Federal Ministry of Finance largely corroborates these findings, projecting a national average processing time of 51 calendar days for 2025. The Ministry aims for a further reduction to 49 days by 2026, attributing the intended speedup to “optimized processes” and increased automation. However, critics argue that these incremental improvements fall far short of what is achievable.
Florian Köbler, federal chairman of the German Tax Union, contends that the current tempo can be dramatically increased. He advocates for a policy shift towards minimizing the need for individual tax returns altogether, arguing that greater political will is required to achieve this. “We must focus on significantly reducing the number of citizens required to file” Köbler stated. “This necessitates a decisive advancement in digitalization and a substantial simplification of tax law.
Echoing this sentiment, Daniela Karbe-Geßler, head of tax law and tax policy for the Bund der Steuerzahler (German Taxpayer Association), champions the widespread adoption of pre-filled tax returns, a standard practice in many other developed nations. She points to the vast amounts of data already held by the tax administration as a resource that could be leveraged to accelerate processing times and reduce the burden on taxpayers. The persistent regional disparities in processing speed also raise concerns around equitable resource allocation and the potential for systemic bias within the federal tax structure. The slow pace, despite promises of modernization, continues to draw scrutiny of the efficiency and responsiveness of Germany’s tax administration.