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A review of the provision on capital improvement in Ghana’s local real estate tax manifesto

Gyau, KAB; Hammond, F

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Authors

KAB Gyau

F Hammond



Abstract

Although a potential to improve revenue mobilisation of local authorities, it is claimed Ghana’s local real estate tax provision on capital improvement is a penalty on land development. This work evaluates the claim in the context of equity and economic efficiency. Findings from the work support the claim. Compared with undeveloped lands particularly in cities, the tax is discriminatory to capital improvements, which situation could incentivise investment in undeveloped lands and be a potential cause for a lot of undeveloped lands, uncompleted and leap-frog developments in cities. It is also not neutral and diminishes the return on capital and the capacity of landlords to keep their buildings in constant repair thereby discouraging capital improvement on land. Coupled with factors like the current poor tax collection, this could affect the revenue mobilisation and socio-economic development efforts of local and central governments. Thus, the tax policy stands a plea for a reform.

Citation

Gyau, K., & Hammond, F. (2022). A review of the provision on capital improvement in Ghana’s local real estate tax manifesto. Journal of Real Estate Literature, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/09277544.2022.2093820

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 21, 2022
Online Publication Date Jul 11, 2022
Publication Date Jul 11, 2022
Deposit Date Jul 29, 2022
Publicly Available Date Jul 29, 2022
Journal Journal of Real Estate Literature
Print ISSN 0927-7544
Electronic ISSN 1573-8809
Publisher American Real Estate Society
Pages 1-24
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/09277544.2022.2093820
Publisher URL https://doi.org/10.1080/09277544.2022.2093820