‘’We present a case for the city council where we propose to repay everyone who received property tax discharged in 2016’’ said city council leader Raymond Johansen of Arbeiderpartiet (Ap).
The next city council meeting is on September 4th. Johansen apologized to those concerned and emphasised that the repayment will be made with interest.
‘’But we were in good faith, we applied for advice from the Ministry of Finance, and we were told that the deadline for the discharge of property tax was not over. But they were wrong. We were too, but now we are arranging this’’ said Johansen (Ap) to TV 2 news.
3,400 private individuals went to class action against the City of Oslo because of the property tax that was introduced in 2016. They believe the tax was written out too late and that the municipality could not have such a high bottom deduction from which many are exempted.
The Supreme Court concluded on Tuesday that the municipality did not comply with the deadline in the Property Tax Act, which in this case was March 1, and that the decision to print property tax for 2016 is thus invalid. However, the court concluded that the deduction of NOK 4 million was legal.
The City Council believes that it is not reasonable that only those who participated in the lawsuit should receive a refunded property tax.
“Therefore, we have landed on repaying the property tax for 2016 in its entirety and will propose this for the city council” said finance agent, Robert Steen.
This means that 55,000 Oslo citizens will get money back.
He said the municipality has already allocated NOK 250 million to account for a possible repayment. The repayment will not have any direct consequences for the result in 2019.
The repayment will take place after the municipal council decision in the autumn.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
