Opportunities for the Development of the Latvian Property Tax Administration System through Improvements in the Property Registration System and the Implementation of European Union Requirements for Geospatial Information

摘要

Nowadays modern, geospatial information system (GIS) based, integrated property data systems (infrastructures) are used for increasing the performance of the public sector and decreasing the administrative burden on society with regard to real estate, spatial planning, also in property tax administration and property mass appraisal. [2] The real property tax is a strong source of local incomes and essentially demands highly effective administration and functioning of the property tax system and enhances public confidence in local governments. [18] The recent fiscal crisis has stimulated interest in new revenue sources of local governments, including capturing immovable property price increments [3]. This challenge in 2008 led the responsible authorities to revise the current property tax and mass appraisal systems in the Republic of Latvia (Latvia) with the purpose of developing and implementing a new strategy for fair real estate tax policy. One of the purposes was also to make more efficient the functioning and use of property related data information systems on for better real estate tax administration and use in mass valuation. Within implementation of the Communities action plan for setting environmental policy (Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007, establishing the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community - the INSPIRE directive), since 2009 the implementation of several important large scale projects for the development of GIS have also been started in Latvia with the purpose of improving the property related spatial and descriptive data and statistics spatial data processing, maintenance and sharing.[7] The benefit from the three planned large scale information systems: "Development of the State Land Service's Geospatial Data Geospatial Information System" (SLS GIS), "Information System for Administration and Supervision of Territorial Development Planning of Local Governments, Infrastructure and Immovable Properties", which is more widely known as Territorial Development Planning Information System (TDPIS) and Building Data Information System (BIS), also will contribute to improve the functioning of the property taxation system and property mass valuation in Latvia. This paper will describe suggested possible proposals for the improvement of real property tax administration and mass valuation system, because new implementations are only on the development phases now: there are no completed and functioning solutions yet regarding of new approach of property related data registration and sharing, as well as use in the property taxation administration and mass valuation.