Taxation of agricultural and forest land: Comparative perspective and practice in Serbia
2016
Vasiljević Dušan
This paper discusses contradiction between theoretical preferences for using land as an object of taxation and modest revenues collected through property taxes imposed on agricultural and forest land. The paper starts with a summary of specificities of the land as an object of the property tax; then, classical economists' preferences for the wide use of the land tax are confronted with the comparative research finding numerous examples of exemptions and favorable treatment enjoyed by agricultural and forest land. The second part of the paper builds on a database of average square meter prices of agricultural and forest land determined by local governments for fiscal years 2014 and 2015. The quantitative research provides evidences of inconsistency and volatility of land value assessments at significantly higher level than we find for structures, indicating that key principles of tax equity are undermined, placing disproportionately high burden on certain categories of land owners.
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