Globally, governments depend on tax revenues to finance development programmes in education, heath, water, energy, and infrastructure. In Tanzania, property tax is one of the potential tax bases but with limited contribution to the total tax revenues. In particular, property tax in Tanzania is normally confined to buildings located in urban and semi-urban areas. During the process of decentralization and local government reforms, property tax was collected by local government authorities. Despite being closer to the property tax payers, local governments were facing several challenges including administrative constraints. For example, in the financial year 2015/2016, many of the local government authorities had attained below 30% compliance of the targets. In 2016, the responsibility of administering and collecting the property tax was centralized and assigned to the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA).
Currently, TRA is strategizing on the best approach to manage the property tax particularly low-cost mechanisms to increase compliance in collaboration with local government authorities. One of the current strategies is sending message reminders to the property taxpayers about payment. However, there is no evidence of the extent to which this strategy maximizes Property Tax Compliance. The purpose of this project is therefore to establish evidence on the effect of mobile Phone Text Messages Reminders on Property Tax Compliance in Tanzania by using Randomized Control Trials Methodology.
Client:
TRA – Shinyanga
Location:
Shinyanga Region
Sector:
Impact Evaluation
Funded by:
Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP)
Date:
September 2019 to June 2021
Service Line:
Impact Evaluation
