TITLE:
Property Tax Exemption for Government-Owned Real Estate in Mexico
AUTHORS:
Nicolás Guadalupe Zúñiga Espinoza, Marcela Astudillo Moya
KEYWORDS:
Property Tax, Exemptions, Government Real Estate, Local Finance
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.9 No.1,
January
11,
2018
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is to contribute to reflection
on whether or not current policies exempting government-owned real estate from
paying property tax are appropriate, from the perspective of Mexican municipal
finance laws. This source of public revenue was given to Mexican municipalities
in February 1983, so for the past 34 years it has been and remains an
unfulfilled promise in terms of tax collection. A number of studies have been
published on the economic determinants of property tax in Mexico, but
exemptions from this tax have not been studied from a regulatory standpoint;
this issue is still unexplored and unaddressed by experts in the field. This
paper seeks to answer the following questions: What are the municipal finance
laws regarding exemptions of government real estate from property tax? How do
property tax exemptions for government real estate limit municipal revenue
potential? What other factors have contributed to limiting the revenues
generated by this tax?