The Income Base of District Towns in the Slovak Republic

The primary self-governing unit of the local self-governing body in the Slovak Republic is a municipality. Its fundamental role is to take care of the comprehensive development of the municipal territory and the needs of its inhabitants. Currently, there are 2,890 municipalities in Slovakia, of which 140 are towns. Since these towns/cities play an increasingly important role in the economic, social and cultural development of the state, we deal with the evaluation of the economic results of the district towns in our article. We definethe assumption that the level of financial self-sufficiency is influenced by the level of economic maturity of the territory where the city is located. The research findings suggest that the indicator of financial independency achieves the highest values in those towns located within the territories of Western and Central Slovakia, thus, in the most economically advanced areas of the country. The towns located within these areas are more populated because of better employment opportunities and low unemployment rates. The fiscal decentralization assumed an increase of own tax revenues of local self-government, however, the goal has only partially been fulfilled. The most significant item of tax revenue is personal income tax, which is the only one with the character of a share tax. The redistribution amount and criteria of this tax are beyond the power of the towns, although the revenues from this tax are included in their own tax revenues. Since there are considerable differences in the economic levels of parts of the country and there are changes in the demographic structure and natural conditions, there is a need to re-assess the redistribution criteria of this tax into the budgets of the towns in Slovakia. We assume that this will result in a reduction of the differences in the scope and quality of provision of public services provided by these towns.