Schleswig-Holstein also plans differentiated real estate tax rates

Schleswig-Holstein has decided to apply the so-called federal model for property valuation in the course of the necessary real estate tax reform, i.e. it has not issued any federal state-specific regulations in this respect. As is already the case in North Rhine-Westphalia, there are now also considerations here to allow municipal authorities to differentiate the rates of assessment for property tax according to agriculture and forestry, residential and non-residential buildings.

Differentiated tax rates as an option

The state government wants to give municipalities flexibility with the option of different tax rates in order to take into account the different developments in the individual regions as well as the expected shifts in the burden between different types of property. To this end, the draft law from North Rhine-Westphalia is to be largely adopted; a guideline for the parliamentary procedure has already been drawn up.
If a municipality chooses the option, it must explain the reasons for the differentiation in a transparent manner in order to ensure that the procedure is constitutionally compliant with the principle of equality in Article 3 of the Basic Law.

Date of application

The additional flexibility is to be available to the municipalities in Schleswig-Holstein as early as January 1, 2025. It remains to be seen whether the legislative process will be carried out so quickly and whether the municipalities will (be able to) implement this in the time remaining to set the tax rates.

Register of tax rates

According to previous statements, the real estate tax revenue in the respective municipality is to remain unaffected by the reform overall. In order to make the setting of tax rates transparent, the Ministry of Finance intends to make a register available in September. This will show how the individual municipalities would have to set their tax rates for 2025 in order to achieve the same level of real estate tax revenue as before the reform. However, differentiated tax rates cannot be shown here, as these are the responsibility of the municipalities.