Abstract

Although a potential to improve revenue mobilisation of local authorities, it is claimed Ghana’s local real estate tax provision on capital improvement is a penalty on land development. This work evaluates the claim in the context of equity and economic efficiency. Findings from the work support the claim. Compared with undeveloped lands particularly in cities, the tax is discriminatory to capital improvements, which situation could incentivise investment in undeveloped lands and be a potential cause for a lot of undeveloped lands, uncompleted and leap-frog developments in cities. It is also not neutral and diminishes the return on capital and the capacity of landlords to keep their buildings in constant repair thereby discouraging capital improvement on land. Coupled with factors like the current poor tax collection, this could affect the revenue mobilisation and socio-economic development efforts of local and central governments. Thus, the tax policy stands a plea for a reform.

摘要

尽管有可能改善地方当局的收入动员，但据称加纳对资本改善的地方房地产税规定是对土地开发的惩罚。这项工作在公平和经济效率的背景下评估索赔。这项工作的发现支持了这一说法。与未开发土地特别是城市中的未开发土地相比，税收对资本改善具有歧视性，这种情况可能会刺激对未开发土地的投资，并成为城市大量未开发土地、未完成和跨越式开发的潜在原因。它也不是中性的，它会降低资本回报率和地主保持建筑物不断维修的能力，从而阻碍土地资本改良。再加上目前税收不畅等因素，这可能会影响地方和中央政府的收入调动和社会经济发展努力。因此，税收政策代表了改革的呼声。