Property Tax Mapping and Assessment Using GIS: Case study of Rawalpindi City

Sammanfattning: PROPERTY TAX MAPPING, ASSESMENT & MONITORING USING GIS Property tax recovery is considered one of the most challenging tasks for governments around the globe in general and in third world countries including Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka in particular. Today, the existing real property assessment and tax collection system are under pressure to increase its efficiency. Moreover, monitoring and updating of property units are not being carried out regularly which results in loss of revenue. For example, changes in the number of floors, land area, covered area, building type, property occupation, tax categories, property usage, and land use, etc. are misclassified and not updated regularly. Property tax mapping is a way to identify and map the exact location of the properties with relevant tax attributes using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS). Each property unit has both spatial and non-spatial data. Both the data sets are integrated to obtain spatial dimension and enable us to perform the analysis of the assessment of the property taxation process till the property level. The integration of both data sets can improve the efficiency of property tax assessment procedures and monitoring systems. The introduction of geospatial technologies to the existing databases will not only simplify the assessment and management of property taxes but it would also improve the tax collection process. Furthermore, this technology will also enable the government to monitor property tax revenue by preparing a common platform that visually links all property-related data such as the number of floors in each building, a total constructed area of each building, individual plot areas, details of locality and road facing details with the applied tax calculation principles. Comprehensive geo-statistical reporting along with visualization and thematic maps will enable the governments to identify the potential of revenue collection and accordingly devise the proper policy instrument. Tax defaulters, hidden properties, and potential areas for tax recovery and tax categories of properties can be easily identified with the help of analysis and visualization. Among others, tax assessment variables such as land area, tax categories, main-off road, building types of properties can also be observed and updated with the help of GIS and remote sensing techniques. As a result, the property tax system will become more transparent, efficient, updated, and considerable enhancement in government revenue.