The tax return is mandatory. Many people need a while to get all the documents together and to be able to answer the sometimes tricky questions. Quite a few need help with this. But anyone who has submitted their tax return will be happy when the tax notice from the tax office arrives soon and hopefully a hefty tax refund is announced.
But in Germany you sometimes have to wait a long time for the answer from the tax office. A study with current figures from 2023 shows that it also depends a lot on which federal state you live in. North Rhine-Westphalia doesn’t do that badly, but there are also serious differences in the speed of the tax offices at the state level.
Tax offices have once again become slower compared to the previous year
Lohnsteuerkompakt anonymously collected the processing times of over 400,000 tax returns from 2023 for the study. A total of 488 tax offices were taken into account, with at least 50 tax returns submitted per tax office.
“Overall, the processing time of the individual tax offices has become slower again,” says Felix Bodeewes, managing director of Lohnsteuer-kompakt. “The nationwide average was 49 processing days in 2021 and 53.6 days in 2022. Last year, processing times slowed again to an average of 56.86 days.”
NRW on the podium in the tax office ranking
North Rhine-Westphalia stands out positively in a nationwide comparison. The most populous country came third in the tax office check. On average, citizens here wait around 50.06 days for their tax assessment.
The only thing that was quicker was the tax offices in neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate and Hamburg. With an average of 50.01 days, Hamburg came in second, while Rhineland-Palatinate came first in the Wage Tax Compact ranking with a waiting time of 49.97 days.
When it comes to processing times, tax offices need a lot of development, especially downwards. Bavaria came in ninth place with an average of 58.44 days and Lower Saxony came in 13th place with an average processing time of 61.77 days.
Brandenburg had the slowest tax offices in 2023. On average, taxpayers in Brandenburg had to wait 68.85 days for their tax refund.
Meanwhile, six cities from North Rhine-Westphalia made it into the top 10 of the fastest tax offices in Germany, although none of them from the Cologne/Bonn region. In 2023, people waited an average of only 29.8 days in Herne (first place), only 31.5 days in Olpe (second place) and 35 days in Höxter (fifth place). Closely followed by Jülich (sixth place, 36.1 days) and Brilon (seventh place, 36.2 days). Herford came in ninth place with 36.3 days.
Tax offices in Cologne-West and Leverkusen were the fastest – but Leverkusen experienced serious deterioration
However, if you are looking for tax offices in the Cologne/Bonn region, you will have to scroll further down the Germany-wide statistics from Lohnsteuer-kompakt. Cologne-West, for example, is in 19th place. Here, citizens wait an average of around 38.5 days for their tax assessment, an improvement of over two days compared to the previous year.
Leverkusen also landed in a respectable 26th place in the Germany-wide tax office ranking. Processing takes an average of 39.2 days. However, the tax office in Leverkusen’s processing time has deteriorated significantly compared to the previous year by around five days.
However, Cologne residents who submitted their tax returns to the Cologne North or Cologne Central tax office had to wait significantly longer. In the first case it took over 52 days (202nd place), in the second case even 61.0 days. Cologne-Mitte therefore ended up in 343rd place out of 488 in the tax office comparison.
The tax offices from Rhein-Erft and the Euskirchen district in the ranking
The tax office in Schleiden in the Euskirchen district made it to 53rd place and was able to maneuver itself forward by more than a hundred places. While the tax assessment lasted 47.7 days last year, the authority only needed 42.4 days in 2023.
The district town of Euskirchen, on the other hand, needed an average of 47.0 days for the decision in 2023 and thus landed in 106th place. A deterioration of more than ten places compared to the previous year.
In the Rhein-Erft metropolitan area, citizens had to wait 45.5 days in the best case. This is how long the tax office in Bergheim (ranked 87th) needed on average to issue a tax assessment. However, anyone who filed their tax return in Brühl (place 141) had to be patient longer. Here the tax office needed an average of 49.2 days.
This is how tax offices from Rhein-Sieg/Bonn performed
The district town of Siegburg landed in 116th place in the tax office ranking. A constant result compared to previous years. On average, the tax assessment took around 47.6 days.
Citizens of Bonn, however, can only dream of such a waiting time. In the best case, processing took 50.6 days. The Bonn-Outer City tax office came in 168th place. The Bonn-Inner City tax office (251st place) took even longer at 55.7 days.
What is noticeable at both tax offices in Bonn is the deterioration of at least five days compared to the previous year.
Rhein-Berg and Oberbergisches in the tax office ranking – a city way back
The Rheinisch-Bergische district town of Bergisch Gladbach was able to establish itself in the tax office ranking with a solid 111th place. The processing time of 47.4 days is a constant performance with little change compared to previous years.
Meanwhile, the view of the Oberberg district town is causing concern. The tax office came in 369th place, the worst result from the region in the greater Cologne area. On average, people here waited 63.4 days for their tax assessment in 2023.
Above all, the serious deterioration compared to previous years is particularly noticeable. In 2022, Gummersbach was in 148th place with 47.1 days, and in 2021 it was even in 111th place with 42.8 days.
Payroll tax compact on the reasons for the slowdown in the tax offices
The study did not reveal why the tax office in Gummersbach has become so much slower. However, regarding the general reasons for the sometimes significantly longer processing times in 2023, Lohnsteuer-kompakt managing director Bodeewes explained: “The reason is the high workload in the tax offices due to the property tax return.”
Bodeewes continues: “Despite the extension of the deadline, many property taxpayers have not submitted their property tax returns, but the high amount of work is still noticeable.”
2024-01-26 00:50:44
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