With its new property tax proposal, the Left party (Levica) has attacked the countryside. The New Slovenia party (Nova Slovenija – NSi) has announced that it will submit a proposal for a consultative referendum on this topic, and Tomaž Štih warned that “in the history of Slovenia, no one has ever proposed a more non-social tax.”
“The proposed taxation of square footage instead of value means that a 119 square meter apartment in the centre of Ljubljana, worth millions of euros, will be tax-free, while a farmer in Murska Sobota with a 121 square meter straw house, which is worth fifty thousand euros, will be taxed,” Tomaž Štih wrote on Facebook, in response to the announcement on the 24ur web portal that the Left party wants to draw the limit for real estate tax at 160 square meters.
“The Left party is just a bunch of Ljubljana and coastal landowners who settled there after the war, when they robbed the natives of land, and the election results clearly show this as well. They do not want to tax themselves; they want to tax others,” Štih believes.
Štih also wrote on Twitter that, according to the Left party’s proposal, the property of Milan M. Cvikl from the Social Democrats party (Socialni demokrati – SD), which is located on the foot of the Ljubljana Castle hill, would not be taxed, while old abandoned real estate, for example, the buildings in one of the 57 Slovenian villages – namely, in Jelenov Žleb – would be taxed. “And some would trust these people with housing policies?” Štih wondered.
The deputies of the Left party recently submitted an amendment to the bill on the tax on empty and large real estate to the National Assembly. According to the proposal of the Left party, the limit of additional taxation for the size of residential real estate would be increased from 120 to 160 square meters. The party in question wants to ensure financing for the construction of 30,000 public rental apartments with additional taxation of owners of empty real estate and owners “who have accumulated several properties,” explained the coordinator of the Left party, Luka Mesec.
Financing housing in Ljubljana at the expense of the countryside
In other words, the Left wants to play big capitalists at the state level. First, they take money from the people, and then with that money, they will finance the construction of housing, from which the state will make a profit. The question that arises here is why it is even necessary to tax those who will have zero benefits from these rental apartments. We cannot really claim that it is in the interest of the public when only the state benefits from this, but not the people themselves. “None of the people who are not paying real estate taxes today would have to pay them after the amendment is adopted,” Mesec insists. However, the original proposal, which would set the limit at 120 square meters of living space, was described by Mesec in his response to criticism as a “starting point for a discussion.”
“In the history of Slovenia, no one has ever proposed a more non-social tax, and I believe that if anything, such a proposal would fall at the Constitutional Court,” Štih also added. Meanwhile, the New Slovenia party believes that this is an attack on the countryside. NSi MP Jožef Horvat warned that the Left party wants to use high taxes to force people to sell their real estate while also warning that there is no shortage of housing in rural areas, but in Ljubljana. And because of that, the NSi party has already submitted a proposal to call a consultative referendum.
Ivan Šokić
