The extension of powers and functions of local self-government bodies in the context of financial decentralization should be accompanied by an appropriate increase of local taxes and fees to local budgets. Currently, property tax is a new element of the local taxation system and a financial tool for local governments. Since the property tax system is at an early stage in its development, there are a number of debatable issues, in particular, it is really necessary to assess the current system of property taxation in Ukraine, to investigate the fiscal role of property taxes and to outline directions for its improvement. The paper argues that in contrast to Ukraine, property taxes in many countries include the taxes on certain types of property, on net assets, on transfer of property ownership. The author proves that the taxation of property is based on the following principles: equivalence; solvency and equity; fiscal efficiency and financial capacity; security; performance. The analysis shows that since 2015, due to increased tax revenues, local taxes and fees have become the second largest source of local budgets. In 2015-2017 the largest share in the structure of property tax was paid for land 90-93%, the tax on real estate, other than land plot 4,6-8,3%, transport tax 0,8-2,7%. However, the greatest increase of revenues to local budgets accounted for the tax on real estate. The main factors of the growth of property tax since 2015 are due to the inclusion of land and transport taxes to property tax and the introduction of new ratios of indexation of normative monetary estimates for calculating land payments. The shortcomings of the system of property taxation are identified, namely: the level of urbanization of the territory where the object of taxation is located is not taken into account; the existing approach to taxing the area of immovable property, different from the land, does not take into account the degree of its physical depreciation; non-compliance with the principle of social equality and the imperfect mechanism of taxation of non-residential real estate of economic entities and individuals. The paper suggests to include irregular taxes into property taxes, that is, taxes on transfer of property: inheritance tax; gift tax. To determine the amount of real estate tax and land tax, the rates should be set as a percentage of the market value of the tax object, in order to simplify the process of taxes administering. 

property taxation, real estate tax, transport tax, land payment, local budget, principles of property taxation