British and German Local Business Taxes under Criteria for a ‘Good’ Local Tax

1987 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
H Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
International Competition ◽  
Green Paper ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Compliance Costs ◽  
Ability To Pay ◽  
Business Taxes ◽  
National Economic

In this paper, local government taxes on business in Britain and Germany are examined from the point of view of criteria for a ‘good’ local tax. The following criteria are evaluated: Ability to pay; support for national economic objectives (intranational allocation, international competition); distribution and stabilization; collection and compliance costs; local authority requirements of revenues, tax rates, stability, and response to growth; and interarea effects. Comparison of the two countries shows major deficiencies with both tax systems, as well as with many reform proposals. The recent British Green Paper is evaluated in particular and criticized for its divorce of accountability to businesses.

scholarly journals The development of the Irish management system and the move towards directly elected mayors

2015 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-117
Author(s):  
Aodh Quinlivan
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
County Council ◽  
Green Paper ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
Direct Election ◽  
Partnership Model ◽  
Near Future

Abstract The Irish local government system works on a partnership model, with powers shared between the elected members and the appointed manager or chief executive. Within this system, each local authority elects a mayor on an annual basis from among its own members. In 2001 legislation was passed which proposed a drastic change to the office of mayor, and potentially to the role of the manager. The Local Government Act, 2001, provided for the direct election of mayors with executive powers. The proposal was dropped in 2003 but resurfaced in a 2008 Green Paper. This Green Paper never proceeded to legislation but six years later Minister Phil Hogan, TD, provided for the direct election of a mayor in Dublin in the Local Government Reform Act, 2014. The minister, however, inserted a clause that each of the four Dublin local authorities would firstly have to adopt a resolution in favour of holding a plebiscite in Dublin on the issue. Fingal County Council voted against and so the issue of a directly elected mayor was shelved again. Undoubtedly it will reappear at some point in the near future and it is hoped that a meaningful debate on the issue will lead to greater clarity on details, especially the precise powers of the mayor.

scholarly journals The Effect of Shared Service Centers on Administrative Intensity in English Local Government: A Longitudinal Evaluation

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Elston ◽  
Ruth Dixon
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Administrative Support ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Change Score ◽  
Support Functions ◽  
Service Adoption ◽  
Shared Service ◽  
Primary Service

Abstract “Administrative intensity” (AI) describes the proportion of total resources that organizations spend on administrative support functions rather than primary service and production processes. We test whether “sharing” administrative activities between organizations leads to a fall in AI due to economies of scale, as is often supposed, using organizational and financial data from more than 300 English local authorities. We employ multi-wave change score regression analysis to relate changes in AI from 2008 to 2016 to levels of shared services participation, and further test whether reform performance varies by category of local authority, type of administration, or degree of structural complexity. Although we find that some measures of AI fell slightly over this period, this was unrelated to shared service adoption for any category of local authority. Sharing of clerical rather than professional types of administration, and sharing by organizations and within partnerships characterized by lower structural complexity, also failed to improve reform outcomes. Faulty assumptions about the extent of administrative scale diseconomies in English local government partly explain this significant reform underperformance.

scholarly journals Disparities by deprivation: The geographical impact of unprecedented changes in local authority financing on the voluntary sector in England

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110348
Author(s):  
David Clifford
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
Recent Change ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
Disadvantaged Communities ◽  
Local Government Finance ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Deprived Areas

Over the last decade, the local government finance system in England has experienced ‘genuinely revolutionary change’: overall revenues have declined and councils are now more reliant on locally raised taxes. Importantly, the nature of change has varied geographically: urban councils serving poorer communities have experienced the biggest declines in their service spending. This paper considers the impact of these spatially uneven changes on the voluntary sector. We follow through time charities known to be in receipt of local government funding at the time of peak council budgets in 2009–2010 and describe trends in the income of these charities until 2016–2017. We show that, just as the pattern of change in local government financing has been spatially uneven, so the trend in charities’ income has varied geographically. Indeed the spatially regressive nature of recent change in charities’ income is remarkable: while the median charity in the least deprived decile of the local authority distribution experienced little change in their income, the median charity in the most deprived decile experienced a 20% decline. The results provide the strongest evidence to date that, in countries with a history of partnership between government and the voluntary sector, voluntary organisations in more deprived areas are particularly vulnerable to sizeable reductions in the level of local government spending. Indeed, by illustrating for the first time the sizeable reductions in the income of charities in disadvantaged communities, the results demonstrate an important mechanism through which ‘austerity urbanism’ becomes salient in the lives of individuals in deprived areas.

Making the Break

1983 ◽  
Vol 31 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 26-39
Author(s):  
Mary Brailey
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Battered Women ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Housing System ◽  
Effective Change ◽  
Marital Breakdown ◽  
Minimum Separation

Mary Brailey's paper reports on research into the rehousing of women after marital breakdown in four local authority areas in Scotland. The four areas represented a range of allocation and homelessness policies. The paper identifies the underlying assumptions of rehousing policies in cases of marital breakdown. One such assumption is that people fabricate stories of breakdown, manipulating the housing system in order to secure a house, move to a better house or evade rent arrears. The research uncovered no evidence of such abuse; most women did not have a sufficiently sophisticated knowledge of the housing system to manipulate it in the manner suggested. Another assumption is that marital breakdown is a ‘bad thing’ and that reconciliation is to be preferred. This leads to procedures designed to give the parties time for reconsideration, minimum separation periods being stipulated by some authorities. In the four areas studied the proportion of battered women whose applications for rehousing were successful varied from 19 per cent to 52 per cent; they were usually denied access to the better housing. The author argues that if the underlying assumptions were changed, there would be scope for effective change within the existing framework of law and local government operations.

scholarly journals Outsourcing or Giving all Out? Experience from Tanzania Local Government Revenue Collection

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukio Mrutu ◽  
Pendo Mganga
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Clear Picture ◽  
Government Revenue ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Fiscal Autonomy ◽  
Whole Process ◽  
Revenue Collection ◽  
Expected Outcome

Outsourcing revenue collection in Local Government Authorities  has been adopted as a mechanism to solve the previous problems of revenue collection which resulted into loss and missmanagement of the whole process. One of the expectations was to increase revenue collection which will  provide a room for fiscal autonomy. However, experience from few local government authorities which have outsourced their revenue collection shows that, the whole process of outsourcing has not yielded the expected outcome especially on enabling local authorities to have fiscal autonomy instead it has turned to benefit the private agent who collect Tax. By using secondary data this paper attempts to show how the process of outsourcing is benefiting the private agent and therefore it is like giving everything out. It concludes that, though outsourcing seems to benefit local authorities by reducing some tasks especially on tax collection, outsorcing benefits much a private agent and therefore quick meausures should be adopted including building the capacity of Local Authorities in identifying the sources of revenue and  in estimating the actual collections so as to have clear picture of how much will be generated by the agent and what should be the appropriate amount to be submitted to the Local authority.

scholarly journals Dostosowanie dochodów do zadań samorządu terytorialnego w Polsce. Praktyka i rekomendacje

Studia BAS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (65) ◽  
pp. 21-41
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Malinowska-Misiąg ◽  
Wojciech Misiąg
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Fiscal Equalization ◽  
Effective System ◽  
New System

The article deals with the problem of adjusting the revenues of Polish local government units (LGUs) to their tasks. The problem was analysed both from the point of view of the possibility of increasing LGU revenues and designing an effective system of fiscal equalization. The authors discussed the external factors which limit the possibilities of introducing such a desirable system. Next, based on the presented analysis, they drew conclusions regarding the necessary revision of the existing scheme. The article concludes with specific recommendations for a new system of financing LGUs, assuming, in particular, far-reaching changes in the algorithms for determining and dividing general subsidies, as well as a fundamental reduction in the scope of the so-called commissioned tasks.

scholarly journals Podatek rolny jako źródło dochodów własnych gmin wiejskich w Polsce

2017 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-86
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Kozera
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
The Real ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Government Sector ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Taxation System

The main aim of the article was to show the importance of the agricultural tax as a source of own income of rural communes in Poland in 2004-2015. In order to determine the fiscal importance of the tax, the amount and share of income from the agricultural tax in the own income of rural communes were compared to other types of communes. In addition, the amount of income lost due to the agricultural tax was analyzed. The study showed that the agricultural tax as a source of own income plays the most important role in the budgets of rural communes, although the fiscal role of the tax in these local government sector entities is getting smaller. The agricultural taxation system, which is ineffective from the point of view of communes’ financial self-sufficiency and the construction of which is to a very limited extent related to the real amount of production and income in agriculture, is reflected in the low level of own income potential of rural communes.

scholarly journals The concept of public health. Types of health systems. Parallel between the Romanian and the Australian health system

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-21
Author(s):  
Dorel Dulău ◽  
◽  
Simona Bungău ◽  
Lucia Daina ◽  
Camelia Buhaş ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health System ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Medical Management ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Public Health System ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Public ◽  
Australian Health ◽  
Centralization And Decentralization

Medical management is a field that combines, both in theory and in practice, two somewhat different domains, administration and the medical domain, creating a third area of activity, namely that of medical management. This review is part of a study of health services management, which seeks to find solutions to improve the efficiency of the the management and administration of the medical system, both locally and nationally. In order to be able to study and evaluate, from a scientific point of view, the concepts of centralization and decentralization of the public health system in Romania, it is absolutely pertinent, but also mandatory, to focus on defining the notion of health system. Only later can we approach and research the process of decentralization of health, the political and economic context in which it can be initiated, as well as how to activate and carry it out. Decentralization, as a phenomenon of the transfer of rights and obligations, from the level of the central authority to the level of the local authority, can take various forms. From a theoretical and practical point of view, the forms of decentralization can be studied, evaluated and concluded by emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses. Also important to study are the ways of putting health systems into practice, which from the point of view of the source of funding are divided into state-funded health systems (Semashko, Beveridge and Bismarck) and privately funded health systems.

scholarly journals Wydajność fiskalna podatków lokalnych, jej uwarunkowania i przestrzenne zróżnicowanie w Polsce

Studia BAS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (65) ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Joanna Śmiechowicz
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Estate Tax ◽  
Local Taxes ◽  
Real Estate Tax ◽  
Fiscal Efficiency ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Public Revenues

The article focuses on the fiscal efficiency of local taxes which in Poland are levies on wealth, i.e., real estate tax, means of transport tax, agricultural tax and forestry tax. The author discusses the determinants of fiscal efficiency of local taxes. Special attention is given to the analysis and assessment of fiscal importance of these taxes for municipalities and cities with powiat status, and to the role of public revenues for local government budgets. The author also compares fiscal efficiency of local taxes from the point of view of various types of their recipients and different levels of local government in Poland.

A Assessment of Management Efficiency in Local Administrative Offices: Case Study Poland

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-351
Author(s):  
Mariola Grzebyk ◽  
Agata Pierścieniak ◽  
Małgorzata Stec
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Organizational Development ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Financial Management ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Management Process ◽  
Economic Point ◽  
Management Efficiency

The analysis of management efficiency is an important element in evaluating the functioning of public administration from an economic point of view. In order to achieve greater efficiency of the management process, and thus the quality in public administration, it is important to analyze and evaluate its elements. Modern research usually covers individual elements, parts of the management process. However, the current study proposes a comprehensive approach to this process. The objective of the article is the evaluate levels of management efficiency of local government offices using a single synthetic indicator and also to identify areas that hinder management efficiency. The study applies the institutional analysis methodology, adjusting it to the needs of the article. The article postulates that areas that call for immediate changes in Poland's local government offices should include such areas as strategic and financial management, invigorating economic development, project management and public service offers. Any changes thus introduced in these areas may enhance improvements in management processes, effectiveness and efficiency of activities, the quality of the office's functioning, organizational development, which togethr indirectly affects local development.

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