Real Property Tax in Slovakia – Scoping Review

Abstract

Real property tax is a common type of tax applicable often as a local tax and a source of local revenues, which is also the case in the Slovak Republic. This topic is gaining importance in general due to the decreasing revenues of local budgets and the increasing financial requirements of municipalities to ensure services for the citizens. Even though there is a wide range of available scientific literature on the topic, it has not yet been systematically summarized to identify the thematic spectrums of interest to the scientific community and there are areas not yet covered by the research. This review aims to identify the state of knowledge (scientific literature) on the issue of real property tax in the Slovak Republic and the research gap. For this reason, the authors have included the broadest possible range of available scientific literature on the topic of Slovak real property tax searched through the most relevant international databases (Web of Science and Scopus) and a complex national database comprising the works of Slovak academia (CREPČ), even in its broader context of local taxation and local government. The results were acquired by use of the method of a scoping review. Our findings show an increasing trend in the number of publications and authors on the topic in the course of time and their comparable focus on the legal and economic aspects. We identified a high preference for general assessment and certain topics in particular (e.g. tax revenues, tax rates) together with a lower interest in very specific problems and more interdisciplinary issues, where we see the potential for further research.