Property Tax Reform program in 45 towns and municipalities of Serbia – Project worth CHF 6 million

Over the next four years, we will be working on having as many pieces of real estate entered into tax records, and to have the actual real estate situation match the tax returns paid by the citizens, Alexander Grunauer, director of the Property Tax Reform project, stated on Sunday, December 3, 2017.

– Forty-five towns and municipalities with the best applications have been selected and they will start being officially notified of entering the four-year project beginning with Monday. The official signing of agreements with the towns and municipalities will take place in mid-December – Grunauer announced in his statement for Tanjug.

According to him, the deciding criteria for the selection was the quality of applications by local self-governments and the motivation displayed in filling out the application form.

“Group applications”, that is, the readiness of geographically proximate municipalities to cooperate with each other, thereby achieving improved collection of property tax, were another important reason, whereas the third criterion was whether a local self-government had itself made efforts to enlarge the scope and degree of tax collection, without help by donor-organizations, in the near past.

– Over the next four years, we will be working on having as many pieces of real estate entered into tax records, and to have the actual real estate situation match the tax returns paid by the citizens. In the previous phase of the project, when we worked with nine municipalities in eastern Serbia, we saw some specific problems, for example, in tourist locations. Citizens would build an additional room or a whole floor each year, without registration. This led to examples such as having a house of 200 square meters and paying taxes for 80 square meters – Grunauer explains.

He says that, for a start, towns and municipalities will pick people from their lists of the unemployed registered at the National Employment Service to work as inventory takers and controllers of real estate in these towns and municipalities for a fixed period of time. The wage costs will be handled by the Property Tax Reform project.

The entire project is worth CHF 6 million and is fully financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The project is realized through cooperation of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, the Ministry of Finance and the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities.

The five most successful municipalities will split the prize fund of CHF 1 million, provided by the Swiss government.

Švajcarska kancelarija za saradnju u Republici Srbiji

Government of Switzerland

Ministarstvo državne uprave i lokalne samouprave Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Stalna konferencija gradova i opština

Nacionalna služba za zapošljavanje Kragujevac

SDC

Swiss Government

Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities

National Employment Service

Property Tax Reform project

Alexander Grunauer

property tax

tax records

tax returns

control of real estate