A lack of server capacity and a massive increase in inquiries after the turn of the year have paralyzed Berlin’s tax offices. “In the last few weeks, many employees have often only been able to work part-time,” said Oliver Thiess, head of the Berlin tax union, to the Tagesspiegel on Tuesday.
Thiess, who is himself employed as a clerk in a Berlin tax office, reports on colleagues who were forced to remain idle for hours because the computer programs used to process the applications did not respond. “The system simply couldn’t cope with the large number of inquiries,” explained Thiess and speaks of a massive backlog of unprocessed applications. “We built up orders for almost two weeks,” explains Thiess. At the weekend he wrote a letter to Finance Senator Daniel Wesener (Greens) on behalf of the union, about which the “Berliner Morgenpost” had reported first.
According to information from the Tagesspiegel, at this point in time, Wesener was already well informed about the misery. He had visited two tax offices in the previous week, it said on Tuesday. The talks were almost exclusively about the problems with the technology, because these massively hindered the employees, who were already massively challenged due to the property tax reform.
The financial administration said on Tuesday that they were working flat out to solve the problems. However, this is not a Berlin problem. Nationwide there were delays from the beginning of January and sometimes significantly longer call times. The city states are particularly affected because the number of inquiries per tax office is significantly higher there than in the rest of Germany. In a national comparison, Berlin can refer to the very fast processing times of the tax offices and will continue to be able to do so, it said.
Oliver Thiess gave at least a slight all-clear on Tuesday morning. With the onset of the reporting triggered by his letter, the problems decreased and the pace of the systems increased again, reports the union boss. Although the systems are still slower than before the turn of the year, continuous work is possible again.
He and his colleagues in the 22 tax office locations across Berlin will be happy: Owners of properties have until the end of January to submit their applications. In addition to the accumulated backlog of applications, many thousands of processes come to the tax offices of the districts – including objections.
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