IN 2008, property taxes in 84 district towns and districts of Bratislava rose 13.5 percent on average when compared with last year.
Róbert Kičina, the executive director of the Slovak Alliance of Entepreneurs (PAS), told the SITA newswire that 54 of the supervised towns increased their rates; 25, including Bratislava, did not; and only five decided to decrease rates.
"Last year, property taxes rose only 0.7 percent on average," Kičina said.
He added that the reason for the minimal growth of tax rates in 2007 were the local elections, when the local governments did not want, or better to say did not manage immediately after the elections, to change them.
This year, entrepreneurs have three negative leading points, according to the PAS. The new tax on non-residential rooms intended for business had the fastest growth year-on-year at 43 percent. Its current average rate is Sk41.05 per square metre.
The biggest increase since 2004 is in tax on industrial constructions, which rose in Slovakia's district towns by 22 percent over four years, to reach an average of Sk61.81 per square metre, SITA wrote.
The tax on constructions of other businesses hit an average level of Sk87,71 per square meter, which is a rise of 131 percent over four years.
As the only entrepreneurs' association, the PAS monitors the level of property taxes in Slovak towns in a complex way, after the power to set its amount was delegated to local governments by the end of 2004.
The main aim of the alliance when designing charts of property taxes is to inform businesspeople, as well as the public, about the level of tax rates in specific towns and cities, which supports tax competition and applies pressure for more effective financing, use and administration of public property.
A part of the PAS database of charts of the local taxes is also an interactive calculator for the property tax, which enables the user to calculate the total sum of the tax according to the set structure of properties in specific towns of Slovakia.
