New property taxes? The Ministry responds to the MPs of Sovereign Poland
The Ministry of Finance denied that it had started work on the introduction of cadastral tax and tax on vacant buildings. The latter is a postulate of the Left, to which it returns from time to time, and several days ago it clearly formulated it at the convention.
The left argues that the new tax will encourage owners of apartments that are not used on a daily basis to rent them.
– We proposed – in order to obtain funds, among others: for construction – tax on vacant buildings. We will submit such a bill as a club. This is a continuation of issues related to housing, which is truly one of the biggest problems in Poland, said Anna Maria Żukowska on Radio One.
Sovereign Poland MPs Sebastian Kaleta and Dariusz Matecki asked (in interpellation mode) whether the Ministry of Finance is already legislatively preparing to fulfill this announcement. The reply came back stating that no such work is being carried out.
Where are these 2 million vacant buildings?
The left likes to repeat the argument about 2 million vacant buildings, the introduction of which to the market – i.e. putting them up for rent or sale – would significantly increase the availability of apartments in Poland. As a result, prices could fall. If someone does not want to rent their apartment, they will not be forced to do so, but they will have to take into account an additional tax. According to the Left’s plan, tax profits would go not to the central budget, but to the local government budget and be used to build cheap apartments. Are you sure these are 2 million apartments and houses? The problem with the calculation results from the fact that this mass includes the so-called second apartments (e.g. holiday apartments), but also, for example, grandparents’ apartments in some unattractive parts of Poland – communes from which people leave for work and a better life, not come to them. Having to pay tax on my grandmother’s house, which has been decaying for 30 years on a neighboring plot, is likely to encourage the heirs, who had no idea how to develop it, to demolish it.
To make things more fun, the Central Statistical Office estimates that as many as 60,000. vacancies are in the resources of municipalities. Laziness or sabotage on the part of local governments? Not necessarily. There are many apartments in the municipal resources that are in very poor condition. They cannot be inhabited and are renovated according to the financial possibilities of the municipalities. This often requires a lot of money: many of these apartments are located in almost hundred-year-old tenement houses that have practically never undergone a proper renovation.
We write more about the uncertainties regarding how many vacant buildings we actually have in the text below.
