Description
This book reviews the role of the property tax, addresses the reasons behind its poor performance in practice, and critiques the conventional wisdom in academic literature on the subject. It also suggests ways for government officials to achieve greater voter confidence and more robust property tax systems through key policy and administrative reforms.
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The conventional wisdom regarding the role of the property tax, according to Bahl (economics, Georgia State U.), Martinez-Vazquez (economics, Georgia State U.), and Youngman (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy), is that it is an appropriate, fair, and feasible source of local revenue that helps fund services that benefit property or improve its value. They present ten papers that critically assess this conventional wisdom for both developed and developing countries. The papers explore the debate concerning whether the property tax is a benefit tax or a tax on capital and the implications for efficiency and equity arguments, the effects of capitalization of property taxes and local government expenditures on house values, the horizontal equity or fairness dimension of the property tax, and the relative revenue productivity and lack of volatility of the property tax. In addition to challenging the conventional wisdom regarding the property tax, the authors suggest policy and administrative reforms for improving the tax or replacing it with other forms of revenue generation. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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