Research Theme
Subnational and Property Tax
While policymakers and academics have increasingly focused on national-level taxation in lower-income countries, subnational taxation has remained relatively neglected. Yet subnational taxes have wide-ranging and direct impacts on citizens in low-income countries with important implications for small business growth, local service delivery, equity, transparency, and accountability.
Property taxes are of particular interest: they hold significant revenue potential, are non-distortionary and progressive and are easily linked to public services – yet they remain chronically underexploited in almost all lower-income countries. Our research aims to expand the empirical evidence base on property and subnational taxation, centred on three key questions: (1) why existing systems underperform; (2) what reform strategies could overcome barriers to reform, including where reform has succeeded; (3) how reform dynamics vary across contexts, to offer a contextually grounded understanding of reform challenges.
This work is led by the Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI), based at the University of Toronto.
Key Resources
Subnational and Property Tax Library
Virtual
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Timezone: Europe/London
Unlike most sources of local revenue, responsibility for the different aspects of property tax administration in Africa is often split between central and local authorities. In many countries, central governments have, since the colonial period, retained responsibility for land titling,
Virtual
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Timezone: America/New_York
Information technology (IT) holds great potential for improving property taxation: it can help accelerate property identification, digitalise and automate aspects of property valuation, facilitate payments by taxpayers, improve transparency, and strengthen data management. In practice however, the impact of new
Virtual
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Timezone: Europe/Oslo
The Addis Tax Initiative (ATI), the Development Partners Network on Decentralisation & Local Governance (DeLoG) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) cordially invite you to the jointly organised next webinar of the series on the role of subnational
Virtual
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Timezone: Europe/London
Property valuation is essential for effectively mobilising property tax revenue. While it may seem straightforward in theory, in practice multiple administrative, legal, political, and financial challenges continue to limit effective property valuation across Africa. Dominant valuation methods have significant trade-offs
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