Possible impact of changes in real property taxation

Abstract

The revenue from real property taxes in different countries varies a lot. This revenue is usually allocated to municipal budget. Improvement of real property taxation system, changes in taxable value or introduction of new real property tax can increase revenue from taxation and encourage municipalities to improve living surrounding and infrastructure. The discussions about changes in real property taxation system recently took place in Lithuania. It showed that new property tax for natural persons and changes of land taxable value can be introduced. The aim of this article is to analyze possible impact of changes in real property taxation. Comparison of mass valuation and real market prices of apartments in Kaunas municipality was accomplished to investigate the accuracy of possible natural persons taxation. Real market price, average market prices and nominal prices of land were compared in the middle region of Lithuania. There is a clear tendency that real market prices of agricultural land are higher than those, estimated by mass appraisal. The difference fluctuates from 20 to almost 60 percents and is 35 percents on average. The proposals for law on land do not strictly regulate the land tax rate, therefore it is impossible to conclude the possible impact of changes for agricultural land owners and for the State budget. Analysis of apartments average market price by mass appraisal and real market price in Kaunas city showed, that difference of values fluctuates from 7% to 98%. In all cases average market value was lower than real market value, so if the new real property tax was introduced, owners would not feel unjust because of wrong evaluation of their property