YEREL VERGİ SİSTEMLERİNİN KARŞILAŞTIRMALI ANALİZİ: TÜRKİYE'DEKİ BELEDİYELERİN FİNANSMANI AÇISINDAN BİR MODEL ÖNERİSİ (original) (raw)

Local governments have become the focal point of some positive developments on economic growth and development through more efficient use of resources. In addition, they have come to the fore in terms of democracy, accountability, fiscal discipline and fiscal responsibility with the advantages they provide for participation. The development of welfare state understanding with these factors, population growth, urbanization process and localization, widespread in the post-1980 period, decentralization, governance and locality in service, put local governments in the foreground in the process of public service supply. Moreover, there has been an increasing share of duties between central governments and local governments. Public service burden on local governments increased in quality and quantity. As a result of the increased service burden, the spending levels of local units have also increased. However, the positive developments in the allocation of duties have not been experienced in own-revenues allocation and have generally been insufficient compared to the revenues, duties and responsibilities of local administrations. The income-expenditure imbalance was tried to be eliminated by transfers made by the central government instead of tax and non-tax self-source of income. In cases where transfers are insufficient, the option of financing expenditures by debt is generally used. Local government expenditures should be financed by own-revenues and in particular by taxes, as required by the modern local government approach. Because taxes are considered to be the most regular, healthy, sustainable and stable financing instruments. For the aforementioned reasons, reforms are made by adopting the principles of financial autonomy and localization, and taxes and other own-revenues are continuously increased. The most important units of local government are municipalities in Turkey due to its population potential and income/expenditure levels. However, there is a significant discrepancy between the expenditures of municipalities in the context of their duties and responsibilities and their own-revenues and especially tax revenues. The relevant inconsistency makes municipalities overly dependent on the shares transferred from the general budget tax revenues collection. In addition, Turkish municipalities, which do not have the authority to tax, create new sources of income and cannot use the available resources effectively, are moving away from being efficient service units and are deprived of the possible benefits that may be obtained by financial autonomy. In order to solve these problems of the municipalities and get rid of the financial inconsistency, it has been decided to examine the European Union which Turkey has been trying to become a member for many years. As a result of the study, different tax types and taxation systems applied at the local level in the relevant countries are discussed. Alternative solutions are proposed to increase the tax revenues of municipalities in Turkey in order to solve their income problems. The ultimate aim is a structural transformation that enables growth of tax revenues in achieving municipal duties in Turkey.