Property tax in Belgrade remains the same, slightly higher in Nis and Kragujevac

Next year, the citizens of Belgrade will pay the same property tax as this year, if they did not upgrade their houses and increase the area of their apartments.

In Nis and Kragujevac, this fee will be slightly higher, compared to last year, but not as high as the trend of real estate value growth and not for all the residents of these cities.

Members of the Belgrade City Assembly have adopted the Decision on determining the average price per square meter of appropriate real estate for determining the property tax for 2022. Goran Vesic, Deputy Mayor of Belgrade, said that there would be no increase in the property tax.

He specified that this referred to taxpayers who did not keep business books and for real estate whose area had not changed, although the price of a square meter in Belgrade increased by an average of six percent.

„Despite the legal obligation to adjust the amount of tax with the increase in real estate prices, we added this provision to the decision so that people would not get higher tax bills,“ Vesic said, adding that they did so because of the coronavirus pandemic and because they thought it was very important not to burden citizens with additional costs.

The freezing of the tax was somewhat expected because the elections will take place soon, and tax reports are sent to home addresses in the first days of spring before the elections will take place. It is clear that increasing this levy, to which citizens are particularly sensitive, is not a popular measure in an election year.

In addition, the increase in property tax in Belgrade is usually not accompanied by a consistent increase in the value of real estate. The increase in this levy was limited to two percent for several years. This lasted until 2020, when tax reports were increased by single-digit percentages, and there were zones in which the amount was reduced.

Of course, there were also individual cases in which the tax was increased by up to 30 percent last year. Because, apart from the value of the real estate, i.e. the tax base, the tax rate is also taken into account as well as whether the taxpayer is entitled to depreciation.

Izvor: Politika

Foto: Beta