Many summer residents and villagers ask a reasonable question: why should I pay tax on a house that I built myself? After all, I built it on my own site, with my own hands and with my own money.
And this is the right question, especially when taxes should be levied not only on residential buildings, but also on garden buildings on a foundation - baths, greenhouses. And this issue is all the more relevant when we are already paying the tax on the land on which this house is installed. By the way, not in all countries the land plot and the house on it are separately taxed.
Why is this happening in Russia? In fact, the answer to this question goes back to the 1917 revolution. We figure out what's what.
Back to USSR
If we own a country house and a plot, then we pay two taxes for it. For land - land tax, for a house - real estate tax. This is the result of a separate legal regime for land plots and any other buildings.
The origins of this division go back to the October Revolution of 1917. It was then that the decree "On Land" was adopted, which completely abolished the right to private ownership of land.
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“All land, after its alienation, goes into the national land fund. Its distribution among the working people is in charge of local and central self-governments, ranging from democratically organized non-socialist rural and urban communities to central regional institutions.
Landowners' ownership of land is canceled immediately without any redemption. For the victims of the coup d'etat, only the right to public support is recognized for the time necessary to adapt to the new conditions of existence."
The land was taken from the landlords and transferred to the peasants. The process of land confiscation on the territory of European Russia was completed by January 1918, and by the spring, their redistribution between new land users was over.
Private ownership of land plots was canceled, but with the legal regulation of buildings on these plots, everything was not so clear. In the Civil Code of the RSFSR in 1922, there was no provision for personal ownership of buildings on the ground, but the right of development appeared.
At first, only local authorities had the right to build, which fully corresponded to the ideology of communism. But after the Civil War, the country was devastated, and the state did not always have enough strength and resources to build it. Therefore, the authorities decided to legally empower citizens and cooperatives with the right to build land. So, for example, the Council of People's Commissars of August 8, 1921 appeared "On granting cooperative associations and individual citizens the right to build urban areas." Citizens were given the opportunity to build up those urban areas "which cannot be built up in the near future with funds from local executive committees."
There was still no ownership of land or houses. Instruction of the NKVD and NKYU No. 204/654, defined the right to build as "a real urgent right to erect buildings on urban and non-urban lands, to own, use and dispose of these buildings, within the period stipulated by the building contract." The duration of the development period gradually changed - it increased from 12 to 65 years.
However, this by no means meant that now any person could run to the market for building materials and buy what he wants. Usually, construction, even when obtaining a building permit on its own, was carried out centrally, under the strict control of the state represented by local authorities, at their expense and in accordance with established standards and projects.
Then another document was adopted - the Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of 1932-01-08 "On the provision of land plots to institutions, enterprises and organizations of the socialized sector for construction on the right of perpetual use."
This is how the construction of settlements and cities began with the help of factories, factories, cooperatives.
There were PSK - mobile construction columns that built up entire cities and towns. Even wooden houses were built in an organized manner and according to standard designs.
Property taxes … no property
Despite the fact that there was no private property, the land belonged to the state, and the buildings generally had an incomprehensible status, for all this it was necessary to pay taxes. For example, there was a Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of 1930-23-11 “On the tax on buildings and land rent”.
The document listed tax rates for different types of buildings, as well as rates and rules for levying land rent from built-up and undeveloped land. Rent was collected from both urban and non-urban land. From the buildings it was necessary to pay from 0.75% to 2% of their value, and the rent rates were set in kopecks per square meter, depending on the class of settlements and what exactly was built on the given land. The rates ranged from 0.5 to 350 kopecks per meter. If the land was already levied rent in favor of local councils, then there was no need to pay rent.
Did anyone have seditious thoughts not to pay tax? Probably not, because all the money went to a good cause.
The tax was levied “in order to strengthen local budgets, in particular to increase funds allocated for communal, housing and socio-cultural construction,” the document said. In other words, the meaning of the taxes was that all subsequent construction was financed with this money.
On the other hand, both the house and the plot were charged, in a way, a rent per person, since both belonged to the state or were built with its direct participation.
From building rights to private homes
After the Great Patriotic War, the state faced new goals and objectives. There was no money for housing construction, just as there were no free hands. Residents began to build housing “as an amateur”. Therefore, the authorities went to meet them and legalized the construction by the forces of citizens, although this did not correspond too much to the ideological guidelines of the Communist Party.
Therefore, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 26, 1948, "On the Right of Citizens to Purchase and Construction of Individual Dwelling Houses"
The new law was truly revolutionary at the time. With its adoption, the right of personal ownership of the constructed house appeared. The house could now be built, sold, donated.
“In accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated August 26, 1948“On the Right of Citizens to Purchase and Construction of Individual Residential Houses”, in connection with which the right to build was canceled, when performing notarial actions and considering court cases, one should proceed from the fact that that residential houses built by citizens before August 26, 1948 under construction contracts, regardless of the expiration of these contracts, should be recognized as belonging to these citizens on the basis of the right of personal property.
Letter of the Ministry of Justice of the USSR of 05.05.1952 No. P-49 "On residential buildings built by citizens before August 26, 1948 under construction contracts"
The results were not long in coming. In just four years, from 1946 to 1950, 30,752 private houses were built in the cities of the region, with a total living area of 780.3 thousand square meters. m.
Legislators in every possible way avoided the term “private property” and replaced it with “personal property”. However, taking into account the legislative norms of that time, the language did not dare to call such buildings private property in full.
There were plenty of restrictions for the owner of a private house. The size limit for the house was not to exceed 60 square meters per person. There were a lot of requirements for height, room size, communications. In addition, the compulsory gratuitous confiscation of a house belonging to a citizen on the basis of the right of personal property was also allowed in the administrative procedure (Article 107 of the Civil Code of the RSFSR).
Or here is another, no less draconian rule: if, on the grounds permitted by law, more than one residential building is in the personal property of a citizen or in the co-living spouses and their minor children, the owner has the right to leave any of these houses at his choice, and the other house is obliged sell, donate or otherwise alienate within a year.
One way or another, from a legal point of view, it was at that moment that a unique legal moment was born - despite the fact that the land on which the house stood belonged to the state, the house itself was formally already in the personal property of the citizen.
What about taxes?
In the meantime, taxes have not gone away. They were still collected from the ground under the house, and from the house itself. And here is a document from the late USSR: the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of 01.26.1981 "On local taxes and fees."
A tax of 1% of the inventory value of the house was levied from buildings, and from land plots per square meter, depending on the class of settlements, in the following sizes: first class - 1.8 kopecks, second class - 1.5, third class - 1, 2, fourth grade - 0.9, fifth grade - 0.6 and sixth grade - 0.4 kopecks.
However, many did not pay these taxes because they belonged to the groups of persons from whom the tax was not levied. For example, collective farms and those who paid agricultural tax, heroes of socialist labor, pensioners and members of their families, living together with them and other persons were exempted from the tax on buildings. Land tax was not paid for plots that were in agricultural use, for haymaking or for grazing.
By the way, the new law no longer contained phrases about the purposes for which these taxes are levied and that the money will go to finance new construction. Many citizens built individual houses entirely at their own expense, and no longer at the expense of the state, so the logic of collecting this tax has already been lost.
Privatization
The situation in this form existed until the collapse of the USSR. The right of ownership, which we are accustomed to, first emerged with the adoption of the law "On Property in the RSFSR" in 1990. However, houses and plots continued to “live” separately from each other legally.
In the 90s, when the Civil Code was adopted, lawmakers wanted to make buildings an indivisible object with a plot, as is done in other countries. For example, in Germany, a house is considered a land improvement, and depending on the type and size of the building, the overall tax rate for that property changes. However, our lawmakers eventually abandoned this idea. This was influenced by the too strong communist lobby.
The result was a lot of real estate confusion. Someone registered the ownership of both the house and the site, someone only the house, leaving the site unregistered or in the status of inherited life possession, and someone vice versa. And in this form, purchase and sale transactions were concluded or an inheritance was formalized.
As a result, today there is a situation in which one person owns the site, and the house already belongs to another. And these people may not even be relatives. Courts are still considering similar cases.
Later, the authorities still woke up and prescribed in the Land Code the so-called "principle of the unity of the fate of land plots and objects firmly connected with them."
“All objects firmly connected with land plots follow the fate of land plots, with the exception of cases established by federal laws.
Article 1.5. Of the Land Code of the Russian Federation."
This principle means that a building or other structure located on a land plot is inextricably linked with it and, of course, cannot exist without a land plot. Thus, it is established that, as such, these objects, constituting a single land-property complex, must participate in civil circulation. Now you cannot sell a house separately from a plot, and a plot from a house.
However, this did not change anything for taxation. The land tax continued its separate existence from the real estate tax, and buildings and plots are today different objects and require a separate cadastral registration. And cadastral engineers will have to pay for both actions separately today.
Many lawyers consider this separation to be a flaw in our legislation. It regularly leads to disputes about whether this or that building on the site is real estate, and whether you need to pay tax for it. The presence of a capital foundation in this case is also a dubious sign. As a result, cases reached the courts when the log cabin was recognized as movable property, and the asphalt-concrete pavement on the site was real estate.
What will happen next?
Unbelievable, but it is a fact. In Russia, they are really thinking about creating a single real estate object that would unite land plots and buildings on them. Such a revolutionary bill on amendments to the Civil Code was promoted by the Ministry of Economic Development.
However, last year it was decided to postpone it until 2022. Probably, and so too many amendments in the field of urban planning lately fell on our shoulders. The new changes are too radical to be implemented quickly. In addition, for many citizens, country houses with land plots are still not registered at all. Therefore, it is not known whether innovations will get out of the box at all.
Author: zaCCCPanec