The Confiscated Property will be Transferred to State’s Ownership

Teona Kharabadze, presa.ge

Government has been showing interest in the confiscated property lately. There are different initiatives taken in this regard. This kind of property will be transferred to state ownership. Even some of the government members cannot understand this, not to talk about the experts of the field.

The bill drawn out by the members of the law committee; Lasha Tordia, Kakha Anjaparidze, Zviad Kukava and Chiora Taktakishvili envisages amendments to the new Tax Code. According to the bill, the tax department will be given opportunity to request the transfer of confiscated property to the state ownership. This can be requested when the tax amount is equal or surpasses the property market price.

Several months ago the law was adopted according to which the rule of the alienation of the confiscated property was changed. Before, this property was sold out at the auction and the received money, first of all was used for the tax fees and the left – for the creditors. This rule was changed in the spring and the tax department was deprived of the priority; the priority was given to the line of creditors. Now, it seems like this rule is going to be changed again and the state will be given priority.

“We have several problems here. First of all, it is the problem of legal nature. Why is the property not transferred to the auction first? Is not auction the mechanism for determination of market price? The price not determined by the market mechanisms, is not the market price. Sometimes the property brought to auction does not get sold and the auction is deranged. One might get feeling that the price determined by the auction is normal, but if the auction is deranged, that means that the market does not receive this property for this price,” – states Lado Papava, an expert in the economics.

Besides, according to Papava, it is interesting what will happen to the money left after paying the debts in case the auction is held.

“This is also important because when there is a debtor, it is possible that his property will not be enough for paying the debts. But the rule is that the creditors’ requests are granted according to their turn and the proportion envisaged by the confiscated money,” – states Papava.

It should be noted that the first vice-speaker of Georgian parliament Mikheil Machavariani agrees with the above mentioned arguments. According to him, this kind of new approach will bring the Tax Code to the old state. He is interested why the deputies thought of such change.

The inference of Parliament Research Department states that the department studied the tax, civil and executive legislation of Bulgaria, Slovenia, Russia, Estonia, France, Finland, Italy, Germany and Great Britain and determined that none of them envisage such a provision.

“Property confiscation is considered to be one of the means for ensuring the guarantee of creditor and the confiscated property is alienated by the auction. It can also be alienated without the auction according to the agreement of the parties,” – states the Research Department Evaluation.

“Do not say as if it was the government’s initiative. Machavariani is also the government representative but he does agree with it. Thus, it seems like this is the creative work of those people who presented it. If it was government’s position, Machavariani would not say anything. Often government is blamed for what might be the interest of just one group,” – states Papava.