OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE TAX COLLECTION IN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Shorttitle: Governments world over heavily depend on taxing their citizenry in order to have financial resources for operations or running of the Central Government and its wings. There are several kinds of taxes collectable from various sources. The common ones include; Value Added Tax (VAT), Excise Duty, Pay As You Earn, Income Tax, Sales Tax, etc. Taxes normally can be imposed by the Central Government, Local Government (Councils) or any other agent as may be approved by the Central Government. One such prominent tax collected by Local Authorities is Property Tax. In Zambia, for instance, Property Tax constituents more than 50% of Councils' sources of revenue. This entails that failure to effectively collect revenue from this one source can throw the whole budget of a Local Authority off balance. It is against this background that a research, on how to overcome barriers that hinder effective property tax collections was carried out to add on to the existing information. Although the research was conducted in Zambia, these findings are common in several countries. This book therefore is beneficial to several sectors of the Governments in Africa and other Continents.