This volume is intended to support land administrators who are involved with the design and implementation of rural property tax systems. It is based on FAO’s Land Tenure Studies Number 5, which focused on rural property tax in Central and Eastern Europe. The response to that guide showed a need for information on rural property tax systems to be more easily available in other regions. In addition, this volume places a rural property tax more explicitly in the context of decentralization.

تم إعداد هذا الدليل الخاص باللامركزية والضريبة على الملكية الريفية لمساعدة القائمين على إدارة الأراضي الذين يشاركون في تصميم وتنفيذ نظم الضريبة على الملكية الريفية، في وضع يشهد تزايد دعوة مؤسسات حيازة الأراضي إلى دعم نقل مسؤولية الخدمات إلى الحكومات المحلية. ويتوقع من عملية اللامركزية هذه أن تحسّن تقديم الخدمات عبر إيكالها إلى المستوى الحكومي الأقرب من المستفيدين منها. وإذ يتسع نطاق الخدمات التي توكل بها الحكومات المحلية، فإن العديد من البنى الحكومية الريفية ما زالت تفتقر إلى الموارد اللازمة للاضطلاع بالمسؤوليات الجديدة الملقاة على عاتقها.

Le présent guide sur La décentralisation et l'impôt sur la propriété rurale a été préparé pour aider les administrateurs des terres qui participent à la conception et à la mise en œuvre de systèmes d'imposition sur la propriété rurale. Les institutions foncières sont de plus en plus souvent appelées à soutenir la décentralisation des services vers les collectivités locales. L'un des objectifs de la décentralisation est d'améliorer la prestation de services au niveau administratif le plus proche de ces services.

La temática relativa a la tenencia y explotación de tierras está de nuevo a la orden del día. Así, son muchos los países que manifiestan un renovado interés por los diferentes modos de acceso a los recursos naturales en un marco de posibles reformas territoriales, ya sea en el contexto de la seguridad alimentaria, de la lucha contra la pobreza en el mundo, de la preservación del ambiente o de la calidad de la vida.

This guide on Rural property tax systems in Central and Eastern Europe has been prepared to support governments in the design and implementation of systems to raise revenues at local levels. An increasing number of countries are introducing policies to decentralize the provision of rural services but very often local levels of government have insufficient funds to carry out these newly decentralized responsibilities. Raising revenues through property taxes on rural land represents one way to improve the capacity of local levels to deliver services.

Land and land reform cover a great range, both in terms of the geographical and development status of the countries considered, and of the variety of perspectives on the issues. The articles in this issue of Land Reform, Land Resettlement and Cooperatives reflect this breadth in a variety of ways. The articles range geographically from the paper addressing land and agrarian reform in Colombia, by Professor Darío Fajardo, to a consideration of the land reforms currently under way in Scotland, by Douglas Macmillan, Ken Thomson and Bill Slee.

This paper examines a process - the spontaneous enclosure of the range by livestock owners - which may rise new problems but also permit new approaches to the development of the African livestock industry. Drawing on case material from Sudan and Somalia, the opening section of the paper discusses some of the spontaneous range enclosure.

An act to make provision for the valuation of land for taxation, rating and other purposes and for matters connected therewith and incidental thereto.

Economists have generally argued that if a land tax is administratively feasible, then to increase efficiency it should be used to the exclusion of output taxes. This article shows that underlying this policy prescription is the assumption that institutions for pooling and spreading production risks are perfect. When account is taken of the imperfections in those institutions, some use of output taxes will be Pareto superior to a pure land tax regime and may induce higher output, as well. Henry George was wrong.