More than half of Moscow region residents don't pay property taxes, depriving the city of a significant amount of the money it needs for social projects, the chairman of the Moscow regional legislature said.
"According to various estimates, 70 percent of the population is not paying property taxes," Igor Brintsalov said. "This prohibits us from implementing our social obligations, which we'd like to do based on this year's planned budget spending."
At the end of 2012, the regional budget had a 10 billion ruble ($332 million) shortfall in revenue from taxes on homes and land, he said, Vedomosti reported.
"In the region, there are more than 230,000 households that are not registered and therefore don't pay taxes," he said. "About the same number of land plots are also not registered."
(MT)
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