Effectiveness of Land and Building Tax Collection by Local Administrative Organizations: Lessons Learned from Foreign Countries and Guidelines for Local Administrative Organizations in Thailand

Abstract

         Local administrative organizations are an important form of government agency in today's society. A local administrative organization is responsible for managing local resources, taking care of local people's well-being, maintaining the environment, and providing public services based on the principle that local people must receive better public services with standardized quality through transparent, efficient, and accountable operations. Local administrative organizations are now facing problems with insufficient revenue collection to serve the needs of the people in their responsible areas. There are two types of problems in collecting local revenue: the problems caused by related laws and the problems with the effectiveness of revenue collection. Local people still lack knowledge and understanding of tax laws and procedures, refuse to cooperate in paying taxes, and do not see the benefit of using tax money for local development. Moreover, tax collection practices have not been developed to be able to effectively collect taxes in localities. Local administrative organizations should focus on setting up a public relations budget and preparing various forms of public relations media to create tax knowledge and understanding for people in every household. Local administrative organizations should prepare public relations documents in the form of leaflets and banners, use online systems, websites, Facebook, and a village broadcasting tower to communicate tax information to the public, increase the number of personnel in each position, determine measures to encourage local people to pay taxes, and give rewards or a tax deduction for those who pay their taxes on time.