RELEVANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LAND TAX FOR OWN REVENUE OF RURAL MUNICIPALITIES IN POLAND

Abstract

The paper focuses on agricultural land tax, which in traditional rural regions should be the major source of revenue for local municipalities. We studied and assessed the size and stability of revenue from this tax as well as the diverse role it plays in rural municipalities. Our analysis is based on an extensive empirical material – data from budget reports submitted by 2,154 rural municipalities. The paper validates a research hypothesis stating that agricultural land tax is a major source of own revenue in many rural municipalities and its size depends predominantly on the price of rye which is used to calculate the rate of this particular tax. We examined tax revenues of all rural municipalities in Poland between 2007 and 2014. The analysis confirmed theoretical expectations and thus positively validated our main hypothesis.