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This study investigates the relation between residential property values and both property taxes and public services in Georgia’s counties. Capitalization theory predicts that property values relate negatively to property taxes, and positively to public services. Palmon and Smith (1998) state that errors in public service measures create a capitalization coefficient bias that makes it difficult to isolate tax effects from public service effects. This paper is a first step in defining and quantifying public services and their marginal effect on housing values. It develops public service measures in four quality-of-life areas – economy, education, health, and public safety. The models suggest a strong negative relation between effective tax rates and property values, and a significant positive association between the public service measures and property values. Analyses indicate that property taxes are capitalized into housing prices at greater than 100%, suggesting prior underestimations based on measurement errors in public service variables.

The relationship between the local option sales tax (LOST) and property taxes and own source revenue is not well documented in the literature. This may be due in part to the aggregated nature of the data, which fails to capture different motivations for adoption of LOSTs. Using county-level data from 35 states, this study finds that LOSTs increase own source revenue and in some circumstances decrease property tax burdens. The primary contribution of this research is that it uses a policy variable, the LOST rate, to distinguish between the two types of counties that use their LOST revenues differently. This research represents the first step in bridging the gap between the LOST literature and the tax mix choice literature.

A tax based on land value is in many ways ideal, but many economists dismiss it by assuming it could not raise enough revenue. Standard sources of data omit much of the potential tax base, and undervalue what they do measure. The purpose of this paper is to present more comprehensive and accurate measures of land rents and values, and several modes of raising revenues from them besides the conventional property tax.

The paper identifies 16 elements of land's taxable capacity that received authorities either trivialize or omit. These 16 elements come in four groups.

In Group A, Elements 1‐4 correct for the downward bias in standard sources. In Group B, Elements 5‐10 broaden the concepts of land and rent beyond the conventional narrow perception, while Elements 11‐12 estimate rents to be gained by abating other kinds of taxes. In Group C, Elements 13‐14 explain how using the land tax, since it has no excess burden, uncaps feasible tax rates. In Group D, Elements 15‐16 define some moot possibilities that may warrant further exploration.

This paper shows how previous estimates of rent and land values have been narrowly limited to a fraction of the whole, thus giving a false impression that the tax capacity is low. The paper adds 14 elements to the traditional narrow “single tax” base, plus two moot elements advanced for future consideration. Any one of these 16 elements indicates a much higher land tax base than economists commonly recognize today. Taken together they are overwhelming, and cast an entirely new light on this subject.

Following decades of weak financial capacity of local governments in raising enough revenues to finance their budgets, this paper aims to examine the impact of jurisdictional fragmentation on property taxes in Ghana. Since independence in 1957, many local governments in Ghana are yet to build their fiscal capacity to collect enough own source revenues to support their local budgets. All local government laws in Ghana have assigned property taxes to local governments.

The paper uses quantitative econometric techniques with local level panel data from 2010 to 2016 to examine the impact of fragmenting assemblies in Ghana.

The paper finds that fragmenting local governments have an overall negative effect on property taxes in district assemblies in Ghana. However, fragmentation of metropolitan assemblies has an overall positive effect on property taxes, relative to district assemblies. In the case of municipal assemblies, fragmentation has a net positive effect on property taxes but an overall marginally negative effect, relative to district assemblies. Also, the paper finds that grants, capital expenditure and administrative expenditure of local governments do not impact on the collection of property tax revenues in all types of assemblies in Ghana.

The paper concludes that relative to metropolitan assemblies, fragmenting districts assemblies is not congruent with government efforts to promote the collection of property taxes in Ghana.

Public dislike of taxes led to tax revolt and tax reform. Despite the connection between tax attitudes and tax policy, relatively little is known about public attitudes toward taxes over time, and how public opinion either shapes or is shaped by changes in tax policy. We examine the link between opinion and changes in tax policy in Florida, where the public’s view of sales and property taxes was surveyed consistently from 1979-1997, a time when both taxes changed significantly. This combination of tax reform and survey data allows us to observe the pattern of public opinion before, during, and after changes in tax policy, and to draw inferences about whether public opinion leads or lags state action, while examining common explanations for individual differences in opinion. Among other things, our results indicate that the portrait of an anti-tax populace is overdrawn and that the pattern of opinion differs for each tax.

Despite its popularity as a research topic in the United States, property taxation in other countries has not received as much attention. International comparisons of property tax systems are particularly rare in the academic literature. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, the chapter summarizes the main differences and similarities of the property tax systems in 24 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries between 1970 and 2005. We show that these countries’ property tax systems vary with regard to three different property tax characteristics: reliance, mix, and decentralization. Second, we show that a significant amount of the cross-country variations of property tax and real estate tax reliance can be explained by institutional culture, specifically the difference between Anglo and non-Anglo countries, as well as demographic and economic environmental factors such as the elderly population, income, and unemployment.

This paper aims to report the findings of a study of nine countries in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) that have either recently introduced or are working towards the introduction of value-based recurrent property taxes. Although many countries have recurrent property taxes, often, they are not value-based and raise relatively little revenue. This paper examines the barriers to the introduction of value-based property taxes and discusses how they can be overcome.

Case studies of recurrent property taxation were undertaken for eight countries from the World Bank’s ECA region. The sample included countries at different stages in the development of value-based property tax systems. A ninth country, The Netherlands, which has a well-developed mass valuation system, was included for comparison.

Barriers to the introduction of value-based recurrent property taxes are technical and political or governance ones. The technical barriers include the comprehensiveness of property registration, the quality of transaction price data, the extent to which the valuation infrastructure meets internationally recognised standards and the quality of tax collection systems. The principal political and governance problems are the unpopularity of property taxes, the need to convince the public that they are fair and the lack of champions of property taxation in government.

The case studies are drawn from the ECA region, but the issues raised apply in many other parts of the world. A case study approach produces rich data for each example that enables key issues to be explored in depth.

The study has identified issues and ways of approaching them that are relevant to countries seeking to introduce value-based recurrent property taxes so that they can learn from the experience of others.

The approach has enabled a systematic comparison between countries so that common experiences and issues are identified.

This study aims to present the findings from a series of case studies that examine the problems faced by countries seeking to introduce value-based recurrent property taxes to replace the ones levied on the basis of area or inventory value. It identifies that two of the most significant barriers are the absence of comprehensive list of taxable properties and inadequate data on transaction prices. Both of these can be overcome with sufficient resources, but this raises the question as to why governments are reluctant to do so, in spite of the advantages of such a change.

The paper makes particular use of case studies of Moldova, Poland, Serbia and Turkey, which have explored the potential of introducing value-based recurrent property taxes and the issues they have faced. The case studies have been produced by participant observers who have had the opportunity to examine developments over long periods of time. The case studies are set against a wider statistical analysis of the role of recurrent property taxes in tax systems.

Putting in place comprehensive systems for registering properties and recording their characteristics and systematically collecting data on transaction prices require significant investment over a long period of time. This requires commitment on behalf of governments. Governments may be reluctant to support this because of the opposition such reforms can face unless confronted with compelling fiscal or external pressures to act.

The issues identified are the ones that many countries seeking to introduce value-based recurrent property taxes will face and puts forward how they can be tackled. The case study countries are middle-income ones with relatively well-developed infrastructure, which low-income countries may lack.

The solutions to overcoming the barriers to value-based recurrent property taxes encountered in the case study countries are the ones that are applicable to many other countries, who can learn from their experience.

The paper provides a perspective on overcoming the issues encountered in introducing value-based property taxes from the viewpoint of those who have been involved in working out ways of overcoming them and so provides insight that is a useful addition to the literature.

This paper attempts to empirically examine the property taxes and fees for residential development to determine whether they have a significant impact on house prices in Sydney and Taipei.

Property charges and taxes in Sydney and Taipei are examined and compared. A conclusion is then drawn from the results of the analysis.

It is found that property taxes and fees account for a substantial portion of property prices in Sydney but not Taipei. There is room for the government to reduce the amount of property taxes and fees to enhance housing affordability in Sydney.

This study has limitations in that only two cities are involved. As such, the findings are not exhaustive or conclusive. When conditions allow, a comprehensive study of all major cities in the two countries should be conducted. Nevertheless, this study does provide some background information about cost components of house prices and the impact of property taxes and fees in both cities. It may serve as a stepping stone for future research.

High property taxes and fees are suspected to be a culprit for causing high house prices. The findings of the paper show that it is true in Sydney, but not Taipei. It implies that by cutting property taxes and fees alone may not solve the high house price problem.

This paper demonstrates that high property taxes and fees have a significant impact on house prices in Sydney. However, their impact on house prices in Taipei is minimal. The difference shows that high property taxes and fees may not be the cause of high house prices in all countries.