Taxing “surplus” housing at 1.45 percent, which is the intention of those in power as they enter their last year in office, is progress. So far, they have already increased payroll taxation by abolishing income tax allowances and the more favourable scales of the previous government, they have enacted a contribution for the elderly that will “eat away” two percent of salaries and one percent of pensions, they have made the broadcasting contribution higher, and they have increased the taxation of alcohol and sugary drinks.
Even the voluntary healthcare contribution has been made compulsory, so that there are now two compulsory contributions that we cannot escape. The taxation of real estate will be an addition to all the efforts made by the rulers. But it is not necessarily the last step. We could, hypothetically, take an even more radical approach, such as the one offered some time ago by an imitator of Micha Kordiš on the X network: “Anyone who has an apartment so big that they cannot vacuum it in 15 minutes should have it nationalised.” He also added, “Prosperity for all!”
The motto, which is not actually his own, has caught on almost more than the ones Kordiš has actually come up with – for example, about the need to chase entrepreneurs into the sea with pitchforks. Because he is too direct in his statements for the ruling Left party (Levica), Kordiš has recently been thrown out of the party, as part of the preparations for the elections, in order to capture part of the most radical voters with Kordiš on the left with a new party.
In real estate, however, we are witnessing a “reversal” similar to throwing Kordiš out of the Left party. The government had previously promised to build massively for all people, especially for flood victims. But it eventually turned out that all the flood victims decided to build themselves rather than take state-built houses. The government has not built a single house, allegedly because of this remarkable initiative of the people. Even though it had the best of intentions. When it comes to the otherwise massive construction of state housing, which they also announced, they are not doing much better either. The competition in the government to see who could build more with taxpayers’ money looked like this a year ago: Minister of Labour Mesec said that their goal is to build two thousand apartments per year, but Golob responded that the goal is actually to build three thousand.
State intervention in the property market is expensive, has little impact and is of dubious quality. And prices and rents are skyrocketing. So, the idea of flooding the market with state housing supply has been upgraded with the idea of a new tax to hit the capitalist exploiters who own more than the property they live in and thus, as Kordiš’s imitator would say, make prosperity for all possible. Since more housing is owned by a minority in the community, this may be a good formula in view of the forthcoming elections. However, it is not that good of an idea in the long term, because they are hitting the hard-working and the entrepreneurial people hardest.
The idea of taxing housing kulaks has provoked many reactions. It would be good if everyone who comments on this could also explain how much they would be affected by this innovation, because personal interests influence one’s point of view. If the law in question is adopted in the form it is being proposed, it will have no effect on me personally. I do not have ‘surplus property’. However, because I have a fast robotic vacuum cleaner, and it vacuums my flat in 15 minutes, I can even avoid nationalisation for the welfare of the deserving.
Nor am I among the privileged who, after the creation of the Slovenian state, bought up the state houses and flats in which they had previously lived as top socialist state functionaries for very little money. As a result, the presidents of the Republic, the Government or the Parliament do not have a residence today. Politicians from the socialist era bought these residences up. Milan Kučan and Janez Drnovšek, for example, to mention the most important two. They bought houses and apartments in prestigious parts of Ljubljana for tens of thousands of euros. Today, these properties are worth up to a million euros. And they will not be taxed because they live in them. Meanwhile, Janez Janša, who for two decades has been discredited by the courts for the rise in the value of his property on the banks of the Soča River in Trenta, has been unsuccessful in comparison. And now, because this is also building land, the property will probably be taxed, if what they are predicting is enacted into law. What will not be taxed, almost certainly, will be the abandoned stables on which our Prime Minister, Robert Golob, has his largest solar power plant in Ptuj. Because he is also a private entrepreneur, you know.
Even though that area could also accommodate a lot of public housing.
Trenta is a continuation of the Patria affair, in which Janša was repeatedly convicted and even sent to prison by judges shortly before the elections for allegedly receiving a promise of a bribe as Prime Minister, which is a corruption offence. But all the convictions (and the indictment) were unanimously overturned by the Constitutional Court, which warned that there was no indication of how the promise manifested itself in real life. It was a religious trial. They believed that Janša was guilty. But there were no manifestations in real life. This belief was systematically spread by Janša’s political competitors from the left. Who also appointed the top of the prosecution and the judiciary.
The Trenta case is quite similar. Janša is accused of being an accomplice in damaging the seller’s assets because, according to political rivals, he got paid too much for his property.
This story is being sold to us by the same people who, in the National Assembly, have just defended the Minister of Finance Klemen Boštjančič, who bought a dilapidated property on Litijska Street, which four years earlier had been bought for 1.9 million euros by entrepreneur Sebastjan Vežnaver, who sold it to the state for 7.7 million euros, which were taken from the state reserves – so this money should have never been used to buy real estate for state bodies. The entrepreneur invested nothing in the property for four years, causing its value to skyrocket. Makes sense!
Peter Jančič, Spletni Časopis
