Financing Infrastructure and public services within Cities (PDF)

This eBook brings together seven papers that have a common theme in terms of property taxation. The property tax is widely used as a revenue raising instrument in almost all countries in the world. Its level of importance varies considerably, between developed countries where property tax as a percentage of GDP is around 3-4 percent. For countries in the OECD the average is around 1 percent and for developing countries the average is around 0.5 percent. Some of the biggest challenges facing countries or jurisdictions relates to the administration of the property tax, particularly in terms of the use of manual systems. The lack of investment in ICT to support administration is a key problem. For some countries the continued use of a value based property tax is problematic given the lack of a robust and transparent property market, the lack of valuers and the effects of high transfer taxes which tend to result in under-declaration of transaction prices.The range of papers in this eBook includes the application of advanced valuation models using artificial intelligence and techniques to evaluate the performance of the valuation model in terms of equity. In addition, papers contribute to the importance of the property tax and issues around the administration. Finally, valuable contributions are made in terms of the impediments to countries wanting to develop value based property tax systems, the role of land value capture in revenue raising and the local role played by the property tax.