The limits of property tax collection in the urban municipalities of Mexico: A case study

Abstract

Tax collection levels are determined by economic, political and institutional capacity factors. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the explanatory power of the last two on property tax collection. To this end, a case study was carried out in six urban municipalities, making it possible to observe the mechanisms behind the factors influencing the level of property tax collection. Over thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted with municipal officials and the institutional capacity for property tax collection of the treasuries and land registers was measured. The main findings show, on the one hand, that the better the levels of human, material and technological resources (greater institutional capacity), the greater the tax collection. They also revealed the fact that mayors, treasurers and directors of land registers usually decide not to raise rates, or to update cadastral values or capitalize updates in order to increase tax collection because they believe that these measures will entail a political cost they are unwilling to pay.