The city of Pardubice will increase property tax on business premises from January. This year it will prepare a decree that will come into force from the new year. It was approved yesterday by councillors. The opposition both criticised and praised the proposal. Residential properties and garages are not affected by the tax increase, so residents will not be affected by the change. The coefficient will increase from three to four. The city will gain tens of millions of crowns a year.
The proposal approved by councillors today has changed in two months. The city first wanted to raise property tax on large industrial and commercial complexes. Lawyers did not recommend the procedure. So councillors approved an across-the-board increase for all businesses. But it’s more modest.
“It wasn’t a slap in the face, it was a dig. We also said that it doesn’t have to be a final form, that it is an intention,” defended the new proposal by deputy mayor Jakub Rychtecký (Žijeme Pardubice/SOCDEM). He said that negotiations with the business sector were very fair.
Some councillors were surprised that the town hall did not negotiate with the business community beforehand, but only after the first proposal to tax large businesses. The city management could have saved itself time if it had talked to the entrepreneurs first, so they could have agreed on something, said councillor Vít Ulrych (KDU-ČSL).
“The entrepreneurs did not take this as an ideal way of negotiating. I think it was not the right way. The city has been perceived as business-friendly up to this point,” said councillor Jan Mazuch (ODS).
Some councillors liked the original proposal. “In the Czech Republic, labor is taxed a lot and real estate is taxed minimally. I like the coalition’s proposal in principle. For my part, it is a pity that we did not manage to tax multinationals even more,” said councillor Robert Hrdina (Greens for Pirates).
“It’s a pity it didn’t work out, the city wanted to distinguish between big and small businesses. I understand, the city did the best it could,” said councillor Dominik Bečka (Pirates).
The first proposal for large entrepreneurs wanted to increase the coefficient to five. The town hall wanted to tax large industrial zones and commercial complexes because, according to the analysis, they put the most strain on transport infrastructure, the environment and put pressure on school and healthcare facilities or other civic amenities.
Source: CTK
