Financial Services, Latvia, Real Estate, Taxation

Since the end of last year, the Finance Ministry has been working on possible solutions for the property tax changes, but the work group could not reach an agreement on principles. As a result, a political work group was established that agreed to move forward the proposal of the Justice Ministry to "freeze" cadastral values of properties until 2020, and provide that the property tax hike may not exceed 10% starting from 2018. Also, methodology of cadastral values should be improved.

The finance minister was skeptical about completely lifting property tax on the only home. She said that local governments already now have the rights to apply different tax exemptions to make this tax payable for residents.

She also said that local governments should explain their residents in more detail why property tax should be paid and what their benefits from this tax are.