At the Haifa City Council meeting, which took place on Tuesday, 04/06/2024, the city council voted to update the by-law for Haifa (open public areas).
The purpose of the by-law is to finance the expenses of the municipality, when it builds in public areas by collecting a tax from the owners of nearby units. That CP can include lawns, entertainment and sports facilities and more.
While to date the payment is 22.8 NIS per square meter for land and 70.40 per square meter for a building, the city council approved raising the rate to 30.96 per square meter of land and 92.87 NIS per square meter of building.
Additional tax on the improvement levy and development levies
In recent years, many local authorities as well as Haifa have started charging an additional tax on the improvement levy and additional development levies. This is a public open space levy, meaning a levy that property owners who are up to 900 meters away from open public spaces (public open spaces) are required to pay, when the municipality builds a park, playground, hiking trails, etc. near their home.
There are those who consider the by-law for open public areas (SHAP) to be a "double tax", because even with the improvement levy the property owner pays for the improvement of his living environment (half of the value of the improvement).
Until the by-laws for the Shchap were enacted, what allowed the local authorities to finance the Shchap were the improvement levies. Authorities, which collect both the improvement levy and by-laws for the public housing development, essentially receive double funding from the property owners for the development of the urban housing development.
Chairman of the Hadash faction Raja Zaatara: It is not possible to demand a tax levy from religious institutions
The one who opposed the city council's decision is the Hadash faction, because the by-law does not exempt public buildings such as religious institutions.
"This is a relatively new law, which imposes a new levy on private and business taxpayers," explains the chairman of the Hadash faction in the city council, Raja Zaatara, "the main problem in our opinion is that the law does not distinguish between a commercial body and a public and/or religious body, and everyone is obligated to the same tax.
In our case in the city of Haifa, the law does not refer to religious institutions such as churches, mosques and synagogues. The municipality adopts the interpretation that a church, mosque and synagogue, including the land on which they are built, are assets subject to the SCC levy in accordance with the definition of the law.
For example, the order of the Barefoot Carmelites in Haifa (Stella Maris) is required to pay a tax levy in excess of NIS 1.1 million. Although the order of the Carmelites and its churches on Mount Carmel are public bodies that serve the Arab Christian community in Haifa and beyond.
The solution is to grant a tax exemption to such entities, including churches, mosques and synagogues, just as such an exemption is anchored in many laws such as the Property Tax Ordinance, Third Addendum to the Planning and Construction Law (exemption from the improvement levy). Anchoring the exemption requires the amendment of the by-law by the city council.
The Haifa municipality is finishing re-paving Ramat Vizhnitz for NIS 9 million
A senior official in the municipality told me that all of Ramat Vizhnitz pays property taxes like one street in Carmel.
But when in Carmel did you see an entire neighborhood being re-floored? Everything is ignorance!!
Check carefully and with tweezers every process that will somehow help the ultra-Orthodox.
Pay close attention to Alper/Kaplan religious council members
God will reward you
The opposition indicates ignorance and/or stupidity. Levies by their very nature are based on an estimate of cost and an estimate of the extent of the payers and a division between them. What is the problem to see in the calculation of the by-law, whether public buildings were also included among the payers. If so, no problem. If you don't want to include them now, you have to reduce the cost per meter.
Everyone pays. Both secular and religious, both Christians and Jews and Muslims. Everyone. There are no discounts and no exemptions. So what if you believe in some god.. pay money.
Property taxes are supposed to pay for environmental urban development. A 900 meter radius is outrageous. To even back it up is an abomination. Maybe someone will say in the end. These are taxes on top of taxes. .
My property tax is supposed to pay for the maintenance of more and more religious buildings? Why? Did someone ask me if I wanted them? If associations erect religious buildings for themselves and receive endless discounts and exemptions, the minimum is that they will pay for the maintenance around those buildings, right? The minimum is that they pay the municipality that now has to deal with another building that is not a public building but an association building, which decided that because it is an association in religious matters it should also be exempt from paying for maintenance?? No way?! Shall we all form associations, shall we all declare our apartments and buildings as houses of worship and receive an exemption?!
Since churches, mosques and synagogues are often non-profit organizations that collect donations in large volumes and pay salaries to religious people, it is not clear why they should be excluded. On the contrary, they sometimes create garbage, require much more maintenance and erosion of infrastructure around them than a normal building.
It is not clear why there are tens of millions of shekels to build religious buildings and suddenly there is no money to pay the municipalities for the maintenance and development around them.
A great comment in my eyes, or as another option, to force them to maintain this area at their own expense (900 meters from the border of the area they own) and if they do not meet the demand to collect them in amounts exceeding the amount of the annual tax so that the municipality will do it...