Tax offices process tax returns a week faster

Something is happening in terms of reducing bureaucracy: in just one year, the processing time for tax returns has improved by six days. This has never happened before. However, there are clear differences between individual federal states.

The tax offices in Germany are processing tax returns much faster again. In the previous year, an average of 51 days passed between sending the declaration and receiving the decision, reports WELT AM SONNTAG, citing an evaluation of around 400,000 Tax returnswhich were submitted via the online tax portal Lohnsteuer-kompakt.de.

That was a six-day acceleration from 2023, when everyone had to wait an average of 57 days. “We have never noticed such a big change – and an improvement at that,” said managing director Felix Bodeewes. Delays caused by the property tax reform have apparently been resolved.

The Federal Ministry of Finance expects a similar improvement. “According to the evaluations of individual countries already known to the BMF, there is a trend improvement in the processing time for income tax returns of around one week for 2024 compared to 2023,” a spokesman told WELT AM SONNTAG. This is due, among other things, to “changed work processes and increasing digitalization of business processes in tax offices”.

The German Tax Union expects further reductions in processing times this year. “In 2025, the average speed will increase significantly again,” said Federal Chairman Florian Köbler. The property tax reform with the 36 million additional declarations no longer slows down the authorities. “All employees can finally concentrate on their core tasks again.” This had already had a positive effect in the second half of 2024 and will now also have a positive effect in the entire year of 2025.

In a comparison of the federal states, work was carried out fastest in the Hamburg tax offices last year with an average of 45 days. In Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Berlin it was no more than 47 days. In Brandenburg and Saarland, however, taxpayers had to wait an average of more than 60 days, and in Bremen almost 80 days.

All tax offices nationwide to which at least 50 declarations were submitted via the online portal were included in the measurement. That was 502. There are a total of almost 550 tax offices in Germany.

Karsten Seibel is a business editor in Berlin. Among other things, he reports on: household and Tax policy.