Preparation for Land and Building Tax Collection of the Metropolitan Municipality in Surat Thani

Abstract

The objectives of this research were 1) to study the preparation for land and building tax collection of the Metropolitan Municipality in Surat Thani, 2) to conduct a comparative study related to the preparation for land and building tax collection of the Metropolitan Municipality in Surat Thani, and 3) to study the issues about preparation for land and building tax collection of the Metropolitan Municipality in Surat Thani. The data were collected from 15 informants in total including the Director of Finance, Director of Revenue Development, Head of Finance, Head of Revenue Development, Head of Mapping and Property Registration, Operational Finance Officers, and Operational Development Officers using in-depth interview. The data were descriptively analyzed on basis of content analysis by using the NVivo10 qualitative data analysis software to examine the cause-and-effect coherence with the research objectives.

          The findings revealed that the preparation of land and building tax collection for the Metropolitan Municipality in Surat Thani consisted of Koh Samui and Surat Thani City Metropolitan Municipalities included 4 approaches: 1) The central government's rules were being used to determine the revenue collecting plan. The two municipalities did not start the negotiations themselves; instead, they were waiting for centralized directives to be implemented., 2) The policy was established to ensure that personnel in charge of tax collection were taught in order to improve their expertise and to pass on what they learned to other employees in the municipality and to taxpayers. However, the biggest flaw was that the administrators of both municipalities were merely policy advocates and did not attend any training sessions. 3) The two municipalities' cooperation would be implemented. Within the municipal network, information was exchanged and specific problems from taxation were resolved. The Surat Thani Land Office organized external cooperation between government agencies in order to exchange current land data. As a result, it might be able to efficiently optimize the benefits of tax administration. 4) Social media were used to promote information to the public to be capable of checking tax balances, map databases and property registrations.