H77

We investigate spatial dependence of per capita property tax income among South African municipalities. One original contribution of our study is the use of per capita property tax income, rather than the property tax rate, as the outcome variable. Per capita property tax income is indicative of tax burden on residents. In addition, whilst most studies focus on advanced countries that have had institutionalised fiscal decentralisation for many decades, this paper focuses on South Africa, which is a developing country and implemented fiscal decentralisation only 18 years ago.

Despite South Africa’s relatively decentralized governance and administrative structure, an important feature of the country’s intergovernmental fiscal relations system is the gap that exists between the expenditure responsibilities of sub-national authorities and their assigned revenue bases. The resulting vertical fiscal imbalance is mainly addressed via significant intergovernmental transfers to provinces and local governments.