The property tax update for 2023 will be 1.37%, according to an announcement from the Ministry of the Interior. This is a relatively moderate increase compared to the increase that was 1.92% last year.
It should be noted that the calculation was first sent by the local government center to the treasurers of the authorities, but it corresponds to the official calculations of the Ministry of the Interior, which will be updated on the ministry’s website later. The annual update rate is set at half the percentage change in the price index that stood at 3.96% this year, minus half of the percentage change in the public wage index that stood at 1.21% and as a result, the rate of increase in property taxes will stand at 1.37% this year.
How much more money will we have to pay?
In general, most apartments in cities pay NIS 55-45 per square meter per year and many of them are 90-100 square meters in size. In the peripheral authorities the tariff is lower, but the houses are larger.
In a simple calculation: the property tax continued to rise, but unlike last year, when the property tax rate climbed by 1.92%, this year the increase was “only” 1.37%, which is cumulative with previous increases. In other words, for every NIS 100 we paid in the previous year, we will pay another NIS 1.3 following the current increase, and a total of another NIS 70-100 per year will be paid for a 90-100 square meter apartment.
At the same time, it should be noted that a third of households in Israel rent an apartment and their rents have risen much more in the past year, even before we examined how much the authorities increased their expenses on the residents.
“In line for business entities”
Advocate Adi Moskowitz of the law firm Moskowitz, Azruel, which specializes in municipal taxation, notes that this is the first time that property taxes have risen by less than the rate of increase in the index in the period relevant to the calculation, and that the public wage index has fallen. When the trend was reversed and the public wage index pulled the property tax upwards. “At the same time, Adv. Moskowitz claims that the time has come to abolish or reduce the weight of the public wage index in the formula for updating the property tax and add an efficiency coefficient.