OREANDA-NEWS. August 26, 2010. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has set new land tax rates and lease rates on land plots owned by the state. Lukashenko signed relevant ordinance #420.

The document sets new land tax rates on plots in settlements and beyond them, as well as in gardening associations and cooperatives. The only exception is lands taxable in accordance with rates applicable to agricultural lands.

It is planned to use complex tax rates to level off the tax burden. “It is planned to introduce limits of cadastral value of land plots subject to fixed tax rates. If limits should be exceeded, a percentage of the cadastral value will be used to set land tax rates.”

The fixed rate is set at 1.2 million Belarusian rubles (Br) per hectare in the public, production and recreation areas and 80,000 rubles per hectare in residential multiple-dwelling and rural areas.

The document sets uniform interest rates on land depending on their destination irrespective of their location, which will cut the number of interest rates to six from 48.

“The new mechanism will simplify the procedure of tax computation and reduce the tax burden on the payers, whose land plots are located close to Minsk or region centers. Most of the plots will be subject to fixed tax rates, which is beneficial for local budgets,” the press service of the president said.

Since state-owned land lease rates depend on the size of tax rates, the ordinance calls for a new version of Supplement 1 to presidential ordinance #101 of March 1, 2010 on lease rates applied to land plots in state ownership.

The ordinance comes into effect as from the first day of the month that follows the month of publication.