After analyzing the sales prices of 72,000 properties, we have examined how they match up with the preliminary assessments.
Our review reveals that more than one-third of the properties are off by more than 20 percent, which is the tax authorities’ own benchmark for when an assessment is skewed.
This means that these homeowners may end up paying either too little or too much in taxes.
The accuracy is nearly identical to a similar analysis conducted by DR News last year, which showed that last year’s assessments also missed the mark in more than one-third of cases.
Specifically, the accuracy has improved by 0.6 percentage points.
Anne-Sofie Jensen, the director of the Assessment Agency, stated in an interview with DR that she ‘does not recognize the picture you are painting’ and maintains that the assessments have improved.
### ‘Disappointing’
Despite the slight improvement, experts are not impressed with the accuracy of the new assessments.
– According to tax lawyer Thomas Booker, a partner at Horten Law Firm, the accuracy is not particularly good because more than a third of all assessments are significantly incorrect.
– Mikael Mogensen, a housing economist at Jyske Bank, expressed disappointment in the lack of significant improvement in the system’s precision despite working on it for a relatively long time.
### Adjustments Made Continuously
The tax authorities’ defense for once again releasing preliminary assessments is that the quality of the assessments is continuously being enhanced.
Currently, the tax authorities are still in the process of sending out final 2020 assessments to homeowners. As they are being distributed, ongoing adjustments are being made to both the preliminary 2022 and 2024 assessments.
However, these adjustments do not seem to have significantly improved the quality, according to tax lawyer Thomas Booker.
– Jøren Ullits, an associate professor of administrative law at the University of Southern Denmark, also does not see an improvement in accuracy.
– The Assessment Agency claims to have corrected preliminary assessments and made manual adjustments to final assessments, making the preliminary assessments more accurate. But does that really make a difference?
– Ultimately, the efforts made by the Assessment Agency may feel like a significant undertaking organizationally, but they do not seem to have a noticeable impact on the analysis conducted.