“Property tax declaration for private property”: We take stock
How do you design and develop a digital submission option for property tax returns that is easily accessible and understandable – and in just seven months? This was the question we asked ourselves when the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) entrusted DigitalService with this task in December 2021. In part, the answer was already clear to us, especially when it came to the software development process: user-centered, iterative and with agile methods. Just as our working principles envisage anyway.
Just over a year later, on January 31, 2023, the deadline for submitting the property tax return expired. Almost one million declarations were submitted via our online service „Grundsteuererklärung für Privateigentum“. Time to sum up the DigitalService's biggest project to date – and explain what comes next.
Katja Anokhina
is Product Manager at DigitalService. Previously, she worked in the field of digitalization of education for NGOs and was a product fellow at Tech4Germany in 2021. Katja sees her role to be to listen to users and enable the team to work productively and in a well-organized way. In her private life, Katja is a passionate water sports enthusiast (sailing, canoeing and windsurfing) and runs a photo blog.
Christin Glücks
is a UX/UI Designer with a big heart for user needs. Before DigitalService, she was already designing the digital landscape of ministries and public authorities at IBM iX. She wants to develop and promote digital services for citizens, so that in the future her two children won't have to spend a long time in turquoise waiting rooms of citizens' offices waiting for some stamps carrying large snack supplies. She still has a little time for that.