The research theme is important for the local economy and financial literature on local public finance. It is known that the tax base of the territories is quite uneven and providing quality public services is impossible based on their own sources. The support for less developed local public administration from the financial point of view requires fiscal decentralization and involves financial equalization procedures or other similar measures aimed at eliminating the effect of unequal distribution for potential funding sources. Financial equalization is a group of financial actions made in order to overcome economic and fiscal disparities between territories. The purpose of financial equalization is the additional funding of less developed territories in order to reduce regional disparities. Key words: financial equalization, fiscal decentralization, inter-budgetary
This paper presents the significance of the issues related to the activity of territorial self-government for the social and economic development of Ukraine. The efficient operation of self-government in any country is unfeasible without financial resources. Polish experience in the development of territorial self-government is particularly valuable in relation to the reform of Ukraine’s self-government. The paper outlines the differences in the structure and operation of territorial self-government in both countries. The paper is concluded with numerous observations on the direction of selected reforms of Ukrainian self-government. It shows the weaknesses of local self-government in Ukraine, which result from the lack of decentralization of finance and the small amount of state-collected taxes. The conclusions end with the observation that a consistent development of the Ukrainian state is required for Poland to develop well.
This diploma thesis analyzes the impact of the fiscal federalism policy on a municipality economy in the Czech Republic. The theoretical basics consist of a historical analysis of municipalities' legal status and mode of financing. That is followed by defining of a fiscal federalism model and a fiscal decentralization model, and by taxation and income analyses. Final part focuses on the income and expenditure analysis of municipalities in the period 2002-2010 and an overall evaluation.
The Czech public sector pursuit of decentralization to achieve local self-government ( samospráva ) or local autonomy has probably been the greatest challenge of the country’s post-communist development. The EU considered the achievement sufficient to justify membership under criteria demanding democracy and market economics of member countries. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Due to the very large number of local units in the Republic of Croatia, the system of collecting income is mainly insufficient for quality and functional financing of public needs on the local and regional levels. It is therefore necessary to continue the search for new models of regulating financial relations between the state and local units. The executed decentralization of the financing of local and regional self-government is not sufficient. Because of the new work and activities that have fallen into the jurisdiction of counties (as regulated by Amendments to the Act from 2005), it is necessary to increase the state's allocation of funds from common taxes for the units of the local and regional self-government, to increase the autonomy of the local and regional units in the introduction of their own incomes, especially taxes, to take care about the implementation of functional decentralization, and to stimulate local and regional governments in the realization of a larger non-fiscal income of their own. It is a fact that some countries in the European Union have begun with the reorganization and reduction of their local self-government precisely because of too high financial payments for the needs of the local self-government. However, so long as the Republic of Croatia retains the existing organization of local governments, it should also provide for its financing. The local or regional self-government units' own sources of income should be their principal sources of financing.
Describing the process of public sector decentralization is a aim of the article. Increasing the responsibility and competence of local government units is aimed at a taken of decentralization process of the sector of the public finance. Thanks to granted competence, the local authority together with the community take decisions concerning the path of the development of given local government unit. In the article tasks and competence of government units on different level were discussed. Also critically, issues connected with financial resources of local government units and the connection of these resources with the expenses side were presented.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia, like other transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe, have given significant lip service to fiscal decentralization and engaged in public administration reforms. But the subnational governments of their public finance systems still lack relative autonomy, which could be addressed partly through developing independent revenue sources for their municipalities and regions. Currently, such independent revenue sources include the proceeds of a strictly nominal property tax as well as those of a small set of local user fees and taxes designed and approved by the central governments. Together they represent only about 5 percent of total municipal budget revenues. A number of market democracies have used user fees dramatically to generate revenues for local governments, a possibility that remains undiscovered in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. User fees could potentially generate badly needed revenue for the municipal and regional governments of the twin republics. The user fees and taxes currently available to the local governments of the two republics are reviewed, primarily to demonstrate their current, very limited use. The revenue implications of current fees are also addressed, revealing them as little more than nuisance fees. A discussion on the growing significance of user fees globally and their potential for the Czech Republic and Slovakia suggests the possibility for heavier use. Particular attention is paid to the question of charging user fees not only for cost recovery, but to provide some budgetary relief for hard-pressed local authorities in economic transition. A basic theory of optimal, revenue-enhancing user fees is presented.
The topic of this bachelor final project is "Variability of municipal revenues in Czech republic and causes". The goal of the project was to analyze revenues of communities of the chosen region, to find differences in these revenues, and to specify the cause of their origin. The introductory part consists of the theory of fiscal federalism, decentralization and functions of public finance. The main part talks about municipal authority, her fiscal system, position of tax revenues and factors that cause differences in tax revenues.
In the literature on the subject of economy there are three functions of public finance \ndescribed: stabilazing, redistributing and allocating. Effectiveness of realization of the abovementioned \nfunctions depends to a large extent on the political system of a given country, \nespecially on the degree to which it is decentralized. In the article the author embarks on an \nattempt to identify the advantages and disadvantages of decentralization of particular public \nfinance functions and in effect to show which of the functions can be more effectively realized \nby the central authorities and which of them can be decentralized that is transfered to the \nlocal authorities.
The Baltic countries’ local governments have been functioned during the last decade in a permanently changing environment. Like other transition countries, they inherited from the past extremely centralized administrative system. Along with radical reforms, administrative system was decentralized and various functions were devolved from central to lower levels of government. Despite that, municipalities are still fiscally strongly dependent from central authorities. Often their fiscal capacity is not adequate to act in accordance with functions stipulated by laws. Many local governments’ revenues from taxes and user-charges are insufficient to finance efficiently their expenditures. Disparities in municipalities’ fiscal situation are correlated with unbalanced regional growth, social degradation in the low-income regions and growing differentiation by municipalities’ residents on access to education and healthcare. Membership of the European Union brings new tasks and responsibilities for the Baltic local governments. Municipalities should increase their economic sustainability and enhance administrative capacity to explore EU accession funds and implement EU policies. Considering the above-mentioned problems, the paper focuses on current fiscal situation of local governments in the Baltic countries. The main interest is to analyze local municipalities’ revenue level and structure, expenditure composition and fiscal autonomy conditions
The aims of this article are to describe the fundamental connection between State government, counties and municipalities and to expose peculiarities of interaction of State government subjects and Local Self-government institutions. The survey method is grounded on the systemic research and analysis of the Lithuanian legal acts: Law on the Local Self-government, Law on the Governing of the County and Law on the Regional Development. The main conclusions of the article are following: a) the objects, functions and responsibility of Regional institutions and Counties are separated by legal acts, but in fact Regional institutions and Counties are indivisible unit; b) in reality municipalities become subordinate to the State government and restraint from Self-government institutions appreciable by limited liberty of decision making and finance resources, and intensive state inspection of procedures; c) there is not fully realized principle of decentralization. In the future State government system and Local Self-government reforms could take the way of self-governmental regions making and the power, functions and decision making competence of municipalities could be extended.
INTRODUCTION Decentralization of government seems to be one of the intellectual darlings of public finance in the 1990s, just as direct consumption-based taxation in its various guises (e.g., the expenditure tax, the tax on consumed income, the flat tax, the X-tax, and the simplified alternative tax) was the darling of the 1980s. More important, many countries are considering decentralization-or have actually embarked on a policy of decentralization. The question of tax assignment-which level of government should tax what in a decentralized system-is an important aspect of the literature of fiscal decentralization. Unfortunately, some of those responsible for decentralization policy, especially in less developed countries (LDCs) and countries in transition from socialism, are not always thinking clearly about issues of tax assignment and are not taking due cognizance of international experience. At best they may make choices that are sub-optimal; at worst, they run the risk of repeating mistakes other countries have made-mistakes transition countries and LDCs can ill afford to make. These risks are aggravated by the fact that the literature is always not clear on some issues.
In recent years, the problem of reforming governmental systems has been a major issue facing Poland. This paper outlines the challenges of reforming Poland's public finance system, concentrating on the financial aspects of reform. Due to the constraints of public funding and efforts to diminish the total tax burden, reform is difficult. Yet, change in the redistribution of public revenues is absolutely essential for Polish society. We sketch the existing situation in Polish public finance and concentrate on the limitations and possible directions of the reforms. One crucial aspect of the forthcoming reforms will be a change in the revenue that local government derives from central government taxation. Reformers expect to involve local governments in the process of taxation through a new local tax and allow them to establish tax policy on both local and regional levels.
Extensive decentralization, both political and fiscal, is taking place in many of the countries newly emerging from behind the socialist veil. Decentralization represents both a reaction from below to the previously tight political control from the center and an attempt from above to further the privatization of the economy and to relieve the strained fiscal situation of the central government. Although there are of course many variations in this process from country to country, some important common elements arise from the similar institutional starting point in all countries and the common transitional problems most of them are facing. The on-going reforms of subnational finance in the transitional economies are more important than seems generally to be recognized. The design of a well-functioning intergovernmental fiscal system is key to many of the major reform goals of the transition economies—macroeconomic stability, privatization, and the social safety net.
The principles of unity and complexity introduced into the Polish State budget in 1951 are no longer fully observed. In particular, certain funds administered by local councils have appeared gradually in the last years, on the basis of the budget law of 1958 which admitted making some budget expenses dependent on definite budget revenues. Moreover, some funds have been created outside the local budgets. These deserve special attention as a new phenomenon which becomes increasingly important for the local councils activities and especially for councils of the lowest level. The development of decentralized funds seems to be desirable firstly in the economic micro-regions, such as villages and towns, in order to accelerate their development. The augmentation of the role of decentralized funds would also be advisable in counties and provinces provided they constitute regions with specific economic structure. Decentralized funds should be first of all used to finance local investments, the more so that this would be in accordance with the main destination of the funds already administered by local councils. In this way, decentralized funds could in the future be transformed into the local investment budgets. The considerable development of decentralized funds in this country, in particular of those of the lowest level of local administration, seems, moreover, to prove that local budgets at this level, which since 1951 have been incorporated into the State budget, are not fully adequate for financing local councils activities. This suggests that a reform of local budgets of the lowest level is advisable, which would make their administration more similar to that of decentralized funds. The author considers in detail the perspectives and conditions of s'uch a reform of the local budgets of the lowest level, as well as the prospects and conditions of further development of the decentralized funds if no budget reform takes place. He discusses especially the links between decentralized funds and local budgets in this last case. The other subject of the author's consideration is the advisability of financing the local councils activities by bank credit or by credit granted by central funds administered by budget authorities