Zurab Dznelashvili, founder of Tax & Legal Solutions and former deputy finance minister, has recommended that lawmakers use net, rather than gross, salary when calculating family income for the GEL 100,000 threshold for individual property tax.
Speaking on TV program “Tserti” , Dznelashvili said the current approach counts gross salary, even though employees receive less after income tax is withheld. “The law should specify the salary received in hand, not the gross salary. How can money that I do not see or use be taken into account when assessing my ability to pay?” he said.
Dznelashvili also recommended maintaining a differentiated property tax rate of up to 1% based on family income. He further suggested clearly defining “family member” in cases where income received as a gift from a family member is excluded from household income, limiting the definition to relatives.
He also called for a cap on annual increases in property tax payments for each taxable property, noting that taxes are calculated based on market values, which tend to rise from year to year.
