Politics Online – Tax reform is here



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The unexpectedly large property tax for this year surprised a large number of apartment owners in the circle of two, as well as in Rakovica, Voždovac, Banovo brdo, which is why citizens, after yesterday’s writing of ” Politika, “they reported en masse and complained to the editorial office.

METER. Stojanović from Ulica kneginje Zorke in Vračar says that his case is identical to that of Beogradska ulica’s neighbor in Vračar, about which our newspaper wrote, because his property tax for this year is higher by 7,000 dinars.

– I have an apartment of 105 square meters and I received a tax that is 25 percent higher, which is 7,000 dinars more than last year. Last year it was 28,000, now it is 35.00 dinars. It is not clear to me on the basis of what this tax was increased so much, if it is known that the tax is determined on the basis of the price of one square meter of an apartment, and the square is nowhere more expensive by 25 per hundred. It means that it is something else – he says.

He wanted to lodge an objection, and when he called the Vracar Public Revenue Service, they unofficially told him that it was in vain, and that based on the new established methodology, they charged him a higher tax because his apartment is more than 100 square meters . . He added that he failed to find out what the methodology was and who made the decision on the calculation according to the new methodology, because the public was not aware of that, which it should have been.

When asked by the tax administration why that explanation was not released somewhere, so that taxpayers would know what to expect, he did not have time to get an answer. This reader adds that his apartment was 105 square meters last year and the year before, but that he had never received such a high tax before. He gave up, he says, on the objection, because he was told there was nothing he could do.

The same goes for the tax solution for 2020, which reached our reader MF from New Belgrade. And he has an apartment of more than 100 square meters.

– My example and that of most New Belgraders is even more drastic. My tax for this year is 52 percent higher than the tax for the same apartment last year, that is, up to 20,000 dinars. That is, in 2019 it was 36,721, and in 2020 – 55,987. dinars – says this reader, who gave us an idea of ​​his tax solution.

Explain that everyone in the building has apartments of more than 100 square meters and that they received identical solutions.

– As the New Belgrade Tax Administration does not accept parties due to the crown, I put my complaint, as well as others, in the complaint box at the entrance of the New Belgrade municipality building, but the question is whether the tax was received. There is no one to file and seal the complaint. And all this is terrible – says our reader.

He adds that everything is all the more illogical if it is known that the price per square meter increased by 2.13 percent compared to last year, and the tax on apartments by 52 percent.

By all accounts, the property tax reform has come to fruition. The restriction that property tax in Belgrade cannot be increased by more than two percent compared to the previous year no longer exists, so this year’s property tax amounts have been increased by up to one 100 percent for some residents of the capital.

Goran Radosavljevic, a professor at the FEFA faculty, says the key to increasing the property tax this year in Belgrade is repealing the city’s decision to limit property taxes. Remember that the property tax law was modified five years ago, as a result of which there was a significant increase in this tax. Since the calculation methodology was modified, it was determined that for some taxpayers this tax was several times higher.

Our interlocutor emphasizes that Belgrade made the decision that the tax cannot increase more than two percent next year. That lasted for several years. Meanwhile, for some taxpayers, the tax has reached the level it should have been, for some it hasn’t. When this decision was reversed this year, the tax doubled for some and only increased slightly or not at all.

– In accordance with the previous law, the property tax was determined for each facility individually. It was important if the building had an elevator, facade, and age. By changing the law, the city is divided into zones and the value of the square in your zone is the value on which you pay the property tax. If you have an apartment in an old, dilapidated building in the city center, the tax you paid relatively little until then suddenly increased, he says.

Meanwhile, he stresses, a square meter in newly built buildings in his neighborhood went to three or four thousand euros. Since this is the average price per square meter, the tax will be calculated according to that price per square meter. But not only did the calculation value of the apartment increase, but the rate also changed.

– All that has conditioned the property tax to increase significantly. The reason for this increase is the abolition of the construction site management fee. It was rudely transferred to natural persons, rather than legal persons, which unfortunately do not have these progressive rates. People have borne the burden of that increase, and this is the year it came to be paid, Radosavljevic explains.

In fact, by changing the methodology for calculating the tax, this levy was significantly increased, but it did not happen immediately, but was postponed, he says.

– It is difficult to assess why this has been done now. It had to be released at some point, and it could have been released in ten years. The whole property tax reform was wrong. You cannot pay the same tax for an apartment in an old building in the city center and in a new building. I don’t see any reason why in the age of digitization, taxes cannot be calculated for each individual object. If it could have happened twenty or thirty years ago, why can’t it today? – says the professor of the FEFA faculty.

It says that in the European Union, most countries have a property tax. Some countries do not have it. Where it exists, it is a local tax. The state determines the guidelines and local self-government defines them in its own way, and that’s quite different. It is generally paid at market value, which is determined for individual installations.

Radosavljevic expects this law to undergo changes in the next period, because it would be fair for everyone to pay taxes on the value of the real estate that he actually owns. He says that an apartment in Karaburma cannot be worth the same as an apartment near the seminary, even if they are in the same area.

Prof. Dr. Milica Bisić, a tax expert and professor at the FEFA, does not agree at all with the decision to limit the property tax that has been applied in recent years. If it weren’t for that decision, everyone would pay the tax that follows from the beginning.

– This is how someone plays every year. It would be fair to apply the general regime prescribed by law to all. Why should some taxpayers pay according to the general regime and some should pay less taxes? Every year in November a decision is made on the average price per square meter and, as a rule, it is even lower than the market price. They do not have the value of one square meter, unprecedented growth, which means that differences between taxpayers occur due to regime change – says Bisić



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