Strengthening Delivery of Property Tax Bills

Abstract

Discussions about strengthening property tax systems in lower-income countries typically focus on issues of property discovery, valuation, facilitating payments, and encouraging compliance. But it is just as important to address the seemingly more routine elements of property tax administration such as delivering tax bills. This policy brief summarizes the importance and challenges of effective property tax bill delivery in lower-income countries, before highlighting the trade-offs of alternative approaches to limit reliance on physical bill delivery. In most contexts, the dominant option will be to invest in strengthening administrative capacity to ensure comprehensive and verifiable delivery of physical tax bills. The policy brief outlines strategies for strengthening the two key elements of effective physical bill delivery: (1) putting in place a comprehensive addressing system to guide deliveries, and (2) improving administrative systems to record and verify bill delivery.