LOCAL real estate tax rates increased by 13.5 percent on average across Slovakia in 2012. Out of 79 districts, 41 increased their rates and four decreased them, the TASR newswire reported in late January.
“After four years of stagnation we have registered in most districts a growth in these taxes,” said Róbert Kičina, the executive director of the Business Alliance of Slovakia (PAS). “In spite of this it is possible to evaluate this average increase as very modest.”
Property taxes are now more than twice what they were in 2004, when they were set by the state. They increased the most between 2004 and 2005, when municipalities were allowed to set tax rates on their own for the first time. Afterwards their growth slowed.
Kičina pointed out that while property taxes in Slovakia accounted for only 0.4 percent of GDP in 2009, the average in OECD countries was 1.8 percent.
