The private individuals during January-July 2009 paid property taxes to the value of 130 million lei - the same level as last year, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting the State Tax Service. The first deadline for paying the property tax expires on August 15. Igor Turcanu, division head at the State Main Tax Inspectorate, said that the improvements taxes paid by private individuals in municipalities and towns, where this tax started to be calculated and paid based on the market value of the real estate two years ago, in the first half of this year totaled 23.5 million lei, by 1 million lei more compared with the corresponding period last year. The volume of improvements taxes paid by individuals from rural areas rose by about half a million lei. The land taxes paid by July 31 came to 10.4 million lei. “We do not have yet information about the number of taxpayers that paid the property tax by June 30 and benefited from a 15% reduction off the calculated sum. But we can say with certitude that the taxpayers are more responsible compared with the previous years, especially in paying taxes on residential property. The volume of improvements taxes paid by legal entities over January-June this year increased by about 2 million lei,” Igor Turcanu said. The individuals pay the property tax (the land tax and the improvements tax) in equal installments by August 15 and by October 15 respectively, if they did not pay the tax beforehand, by June 30. The legal entities and natural persons that carry out entrepreneurial activities pay the improvements tax in equal installments by the last day of the month coming after a certain quarter of the year. Last year, the legal entities and natural persons paid property taxes in the amount of about 263 million lei. Out of this sum, 198.7 million lei represented the land tax, while the rest – the improvements tax. The collections constituted 101.9% of the projections.