Tax offices need 51 minutes per tax return

The Saxon tax offices need an average of 51 minutes to process an employee's tax return. This is according to the Ministry of Finance's response to a question from AfD MP Thomas Thumm. The time taken was recorded from January 1 to July 31.

This is purely the processing time per tax case. The waiting time from submission of the declaration is not included. According to statistics from the Taxpayers' Association in June, the total processing time in Saxony last year was 46 days, slightly above the national average of 42.2 days.

According to the Ministry of Finance, a good one million tax returns from pensioners and employees had been received by mid-August this year. In 2024, there were around 1.6 million in total, including around 980,000 tax returns from employees, around 460,000 from pensioners and 164,000 with pension and employee income.

Around 5,000 employees work in the tax offices, but not all of them are responsible for processing tax returns; among other things, they also carry out enforcement proceedings or work in field services.