Country Palestine
Duration Start 1 August, 2018 till 31 December, 2021
Policy field(s) Taxation
Taxation
Funding Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands
The overall objective is to investigate how decentralisation of property tax can contribute to enhance (property) tax revenues to enable municipalities in the Palestinian Territories to deliver improved basic services to citizens.

Specific objectives are:
1. Enhanced property tax revenues and services to citizens when they are given a full mandate to collect property tax themselves (component 1);
2. Improved performance of the Ministry of Finance in terms of increased transparency and budget transfers to municipalities (component 2);
3. Roadmap developed on the best kind of decentralisation of property tax in the context of the Palestinian Territories (component 3).

Results of component 1, “Pilot projects in 5 different municipalities” are:
- A performance analysis of the local taxes in place and an analyse of the municipality's readiness to implement property tax. The analyses will include organization, staff, IT support and taxpayer communication.
- An best practice reference model will be implemented for property tax in each municipality based on a collection led approach;
- IT will be implemented in each municipality to support the new reference model to collect property tax;
- Each municipality will be able to educate its citizens on the importance of paying taxes;
- There will be political commitment and leadership in each municipality to guarantee sustainability.
- A yearly evaluation of the performance (improvements) of the pilot municipalities will take place
- A report with lessons learned and best practices for future implementations of property tax in municipalities will be written

Results of component 2, “assist Ministry of Finance” are:
- A performance analysis will be executed of the property tax operations of the ministry of Finance. The analyses will include organization, staff, IT support and taxpayer communication.
- Procedures will be improved to collect property tax and IT support and thus budget transfers to municipalities in terms of quality, transparency and increased revenues;
- A report with lessons learned and best practices for future implementations of property tax in municipalities will be written.

Result of component 3 “Roadmap“ is:
-A roadmap will be developed on the best kind of decentralisation of property tax in the context of the Palestinian Territories