Local Government Taxes in Tanzania: Weaknesses of the Current System of Local Government Revenues

Jameson Boex and Jorge Martinez-Vazquez ()
Additional contact information
Jameson Boex: Georgia State University

Chapter 4 in Local Government Finance Reform in Developing Countries, 2006, pp 61-90 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract It is clear that there are problems with the current system of local government revenues in Tanzania. A common critique of local government revenues in Tanzania is that local government revenue sources are low yielding, inequitable, form an obstacle to local economic growth, are inefficiently administered, and impose high compliance costs on taxpayers. Based on such a negative assessment of local revenues, some central government politicians and stakeholders have arrived at the conclusion that own local government revenue sources are not a necessary ingredient for a sound system of local government finance. In fact, a “rationalization” of the local government revenue system announced in June 2003 (which included the elimination of the Development Levy as well as the abolition of a number of other minor local revenues) suggests that it proved politically expedient to accept the argument that it is easier to just eliminate local taxes and introduce compensatory grants to provide resources to the local government level, as opposed to attempting to fix the problems with the current local government revenue system.

Keywords: Revenue Source; Revenue Collection; Local Revenue; Local Government Level; Revenue System (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-59949-9_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230599499

DOI: 10.1057/9780230599499_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().