You are in Home > News > Fiscal affairs > Why taxes were not an object of discussion during local elections
- Political stability
- Fiscal affairs
- Monetary policy
- Regulated markets
- Privatisation
- Macroeconomic developments
Why taxes were not an object of discussion during local elections
submited on 09.11.2007 in category Political stability | Fiscal affairs | Monetary policy | Regulated markets | Privatisation | Macroeconomic developments
submited on 09.11.2007 in category Political stability | Fiscal affairs | Monetary policy | Regulated markets | Privatisation | Macroeconomic developments
Local elections confirmed the tradition mainly personal characteristics to compete, rather than concrete suggestions. As opposed to parliament elections, where we gradually observe emerging competition of ideas regarding tax size, on a local level we almost did not hear anything on this matter.
It turned out however that 2008 will be a key year for tax decentralization – or in other words, for transferring some tax decisions from central authorities to municipalities. According to the project of changes in the law for local taxes and fees municipalities will be able to determine themselves (however in a range set by the law) the size of taxes on real estate property, vehicles and other local taxes.
This is also a first and important step toward promoting competition between municipalities in the sphere of tax collection and their effective allocation. The success of this model will be important for providing autonomy to municipalities in the sphere of taxes, and why not transferring some of the “delegated services” directly as a domain of municipalities, as well.
As it is widely known, the setting of tax rates requires a broad public debate, as far as it concerns everyone. Spending money, accumulated through taxes, also requires broad public control and thus a basic level of local budgets’ transparency is necessary. In the local elections’ campaign the issue of transparency was frequently mentioned, as few candidates really understand what it really comes down to.
The reporting of local authorities consists of publishing the main documents for the local budget, programs, costs and efficiency. A fast overview of the big municipalities Internet sites will show that this is a luxury for most citizens.
The municipalities Plovdiv and Varna do not provide information for their budgets in this easy and cheap way. Sofia municipality is ahead, as it provides its budget documents on its website. Among the ten leading 10 municipalities in Bulgaria only the capital, Burgas, Stara Zagora and Pleven provide information about their budget. In these municipalities live almost 3 million people. None of the top municipalities with the exception of Sofia offers an Internet forum for discussing taxes on a local level.
Expectations of next year are for more than NGN 740 million revenues. In fact, it comes down to slightly more than 1% of the GDP. However on a local level the budget will have considerably changed structure, as larger part of revenues will be a result of the city council decisions. Spending this money is neither traditionally an object of a strong public control, nor are any practices of cost-benefit analysis of particular municipal policies and local tax spending known.
Municipalities’ expenses according to Budget 2008 will be around 3.6% of GDP. Municipalities still make significant portion of expenses as “agents” of central authorities in the so called delegated services. But successful decentralization would mean delegated services to gradually become domain of municipalities. A successful start of decentralization means at least 2 things:
1/ pursuing the goals of a balanced budget,
2/ a clear cost efficiency for “local public services”.
As for a start both need considerably higher level of transparency of local budgets and public debate on them.
It turned out however that 2008 will be a key year for tax decentralization – or in other words, for transferring some tax decisions from central authorities to municipalities. According to the project of changes in the law for local taxes and fees municipalities will be able to determine themselves (however in a range set by the law) the size of taxes on real estate property, vehicles and other local taxes.
This is also a first and important step toward promoting competition between municipalities in the sphere of tax collection and their effective allocation. The success of this model will be important for providing autonomy to municipalities in the sphere of taxes, and why not transferring some of the “delegated services” directly as a domain of municipalities, as well.
As it is widely known, the setting of tax rates requires a broad public debate, as far as it concerns everyone. Spending money, accumulated through taxes, also requires broad public control and thus a basic level of local budgets’ transparency is necessary. In the local elections’ campaign the issue of transparency was frequently mentioned, as few candidates really understand what it really comes down to.
The reporting of local authorities consists of publishing the main documents for the local budget, programs, costs and efficiency. A fast overview of the big municipalities Internet sites will show that this is a luxury for most citizens.
The municipalities Plovdiv and Varna do not provide information for their budgets in this easy and cheap way. Sofia municipality is ahead, as it provides its budget documents on its website. Among the ten leading 10 municipalities in Bulgaria only the capital, Burgas, Stara Zagora and Pleven provide information about their budget. In these municipalities live almost 3 million people. None of the top municipalities with the exception of Sofia offers an Internet forum for discussing taxes on a local level.
Expectations of next year are for more than NGN 740 million revenues. In fact, it comes down to slightly more than 1% of the GDP. However on a local level the budget will have considerably changed structure, as larger part of revenues will be a result of the city council decisions. Spending this money is neither traditionally an object of a strong public control, nor are any practices of cost-benefit analysis of particular municipal policies and local tax spending known.
Municipalities’ expenses according to Budget 2008 will be around 3.6% of GDP. Municipalities still make significant portion of expenses as “agents” of central authorities in the so called delegated services. But successful decentralization would mean delegated services to gradually become domain of municipalities. A successful start of decentralization means at least 2 things:
1/ pursuing the goals of a balanced budget,
2/ a clear cost efficiency for “local public services”.
As for a start both need considerably higher level of transparency of local budgets and public debate on them.
What is your opinion about this article?
0 agreed
0 disagreed