TAXING IMMOVABLE PROPERTY: BASIC FEATURES AND APPLICATION OF IMMOVABLE PROPERTY IN CROATIA AND OTHER EU COUNTRIES

The aim of this paper is to consider the main features of immovable property tax,
the arguments for using real property taxation and to give a survey of recurrent property
tax regimes across EU countries. Recent empirical studies have identifi ed taxes on real
estate property as least detrimental to GDP growth. In line with these results the Council
of Europe invites Member States to review their tax systems, shifting tax intensity from
labour taxes towards taxes on consumption and property. However, when interpreting
aforementioned results, we should take into account the fact that these fi ndings are based
on a sample of OECD countries whose tax systems are traditionally based on the taxation
of income, profi ts and property. In contrast, tax structure in Croatia is rather different.
Croatian tax system is predominantly based on consumption taxation. The most abundant
source of budget revenues is Value Added Tax – VAT which accounts for 60% of total tax
revenues of government budget revenues, followed by special taxes and excise (18.3% of
total government budget revenues). The one part of the paper is dedicated to the analysis
of importance of recurrent tax on real estate property across EU member states. The importance
is measured by the share of the revenues of recurrent property taxes in the total
governmental revenues and in the GDP. The results of the analysis indicate that there is
a signifi cant gap between the new EU countries (EU-10) and the old member states (EU-
17) in terms of recurrent taxes on property in GDP and in total tax revenues. In 2011 the
average for EU-10 countries was around 0.5% in GDP (1.7% total tax revenues) vs 2.0 %
GDP average for EU-17 countries (2.5% of the total tax revenues). In addition, this paper
examines the application of recurrent property tax in the EU Countries. The research
leads to the conclusion that in most of the EU member states the recurrent property tax
is a local tax and it is typically levied at the sub-central level. On the other hand, objects
taxable with recurrent property tax, tax rates, procedure for setting tax rates, tax reliefs
and exemptions signifi cantly differ in the EU member states. Each country has a different
defi nition of real estate property, different approach on real property value and taxation.