The role of cadastral value in balancing local budgets

Abstract

Modern tax federalism implies that federal budget relies on the major taxes. This results in the lack of regional and local taxes and dependency of the local authorities. Local taxes mainly include personal income tax, corporate property tax, personal property tax and land tax. Thus, the taxable base is related to the cadastral value of real estate. In the article the authors study the dependence of the balance of local budgets on the cadastral valuation.Regional and local authorities apply the mechanical approach to the development of their taxable base, which leads to overestimation of cadastral value in most regions. The authors studied this problem and analyzed the situation in Tambov and Volgograd regions (that belong to different federal districts) and in their regional centers.The study showed that an overestimated cadastral value leads to an increase in the number of claims challenging the cadastral value and to a reduction in the taxable base. As a result, local budgets suffer and it gets difficult to balance a budget.