H77 - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism; SecessionReturn

The objectives of the paper are to compare the development of the legally granted municipal autonomy regarding the property tax in the Czech Republic and Slovakia since 1993 and its real implementation in 2011 and to evaluate the impacts of the municipal autonomy regulation on municipal behaviour. The comparison is based on a legal analysis of the versions of the law on property tax pertaining in the individual years 1993-2012 in both the countries and a comparison of the tax rates actually implemented in 2011 in the Czech and Slovak district towns. Czech municipalities can influence the tax rates through three types of coefficients which enforce quite an uniform approach to the entire territory of the municipality as well as different types of property. In contrast, the autonomy of Slovak municipalities has increased gradually and, since the introduction of the new law in 2005, it has seen only minimal limitations. The average tax rates are higher in Slovakia with the exception of residential houses and apartments. The highest differences appear in the case of property used for industry and other entrepreneurial activities. The results obtained suggest that in both the systems municipalities attempt to shift the tax burden from the residents to other entities and that the link between the property tax and the local service benefits is weakened.

Federation is one type of state characterised by a contractual and constitutional structure, multilevel power redistribution, a written constitution, and duality of power. Federalism is a philosophy and a political instrument enabling a federation to function. The principle of federalism is an aggregation of cultural, social, economic, linguistic, and intellectual disparities within a federation. Federalism can become a mainstream integration theory: the present MLG can be defined as an umbrella theory based on the federalist principles. The EU can be defined as a specific type of evolving, decentralised federation. Finally, fiscal federalism can provide EU policy with a significant instrument.