A combination of rising yields, high vacancies and a lack of financing led to an almost complete stop in speculative development. In some CEE countries major new development projects are now being initiated or restarted. In others, however, including Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine, overall investor activity remains very limited. Some of have these countries have now introduced special incentives to try and encourage real estate investment. This Guide to taxes on real estate in CEE and CIS provides an overview of the tax aspects related to the real estate sector in the following countries:
- Albania
- Belarus
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Estonia
- Hungary
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Montenegro
- Poland
- Romania
- Russia
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Ukraine
The short summaries presented highlight the most important tax benefits and burdens connected with operations in the real estate sector. The summaries were prepared based on the situation at 1 January 2011 and focus on the following areas:
- Value added tax
- Corporate income tax and capital gains
- Tax depreciation
- Tax implications of financing the investment (thin capitalization, dividends, WHT, interest, losses carried forward)
- Real estate tax
- Real estate transfer tax