Camaj: The uproar over the Real Estate Tax Law was unnecessary

The uproar over the Real Estate Tax Act was unnecessary, and MPs will vote on it again when the parliamentary session is scheduled. This was stated in a message by one of the proponents of the Act and Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, Nikola Camaj, when asked whether the law would be returned for further revision or whether it would be presented to MPs for a vote.

Those in the know hope that the deputies will think carefully before voting on the Law.

"So, the law is very controversial. It was adopted as, I assume, part of some inter-party agreement. The law was proposed by a group of Albanian MPs and, when we look at it as it is written, it literally refers to the dispute between Tuzi and Plantaže," says ND "Vijesti" journalist Goran Kapor.

The President of Montenegro, Jakov Milatović, did not sign the Law, which caused violent reactions from the Municipality of Tuzi and Albanian national parties, and the Deputy Prime Minister and former President of the Municipality of Tuzi, Nik Đeljošaj, was questioned by the ODT due to messages to the President on this occasion.

The decision of the deputies depends on whether the Municipality of Tuzi will continue to charge "Plantaže" high taxes according to its own rules, or whether it will have to return the multi-million-dollar sum forcibly collected to the company.

"Plantaže has already won the disputes in the first instance, that is, in the first instance, that they illegally issued tax rulings to Tuzi for several years, meaning since 2019, that goes back to 2020 and that... that those rulings in the new trial could become final in a month or two. That is why the initiators and the Tuzi Municipality are in a hurry," said Kapor.

The law adopted on July 30 is unconstitutional for several reasons, which is why the president recommended it for revision. In addition to the possibility for municipalities to issue retroactive tax decisions in certain cases, the law is also discriminatory because owners of the same agricultural land can pay four to five times higher taxes, depending on the municipality in which their land is located. A special story is the legal uncertainty that agricultural producers have been brought into.

"This law literally mistreats farmers, putting them in a great state of uncertainty. They never know how much they will pay and it depends on the goodwill or financial condition of the municipality whether they will be charged a 20 percent reduction or there will be no reduction at all," said Kapor.

MPs will decide on the law again at the autumn session, which begins in October, or at an extraordinary session that may be scheduled before then.