Bringing Property Owners into the Tax Net: Avenues of Fiscal Capacity and Local Accountability: Evidence from Dakar, Senegal
with Denis Cogneau (PSE), Marc Gurgand (PSE), Justine Knebelman (PSE), and Bassirou Sarr (PSE)
Abstract:
We partnered with the Senegalese tax administration to conduct a randomized evaluation of the introduction of a modernized property tax system in Dakar. This new system includes a modernized registry aggregating geolocated cadastral data with taxpayers’ information, a new data collection and management application and an intensive fiscal census to update the database. The new application also allows to test a new simplified automatized valuation method, to address the fuzziness of the current valuation system (mostly based on tax officials’ discretion). 194 cadaster sections (including 77,000 plots) were randomly allocated between a control group and a treatment group receiving the program, allowing to measure the value-added of the new system and its impact on firscal outcomes and local governance.