<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The paper answers two basic questions:
<list list-type="bullet"><list-item>To what extent is tax policy an important item of the local political agenda in Polish municipalities ? Is it a subject of intense debates at city hall and local councils or is it accepted as a routine exercise ? The results suggest that the issues related to local taxes play a relatively marginal role compared to issues such as the location of major investments. However, the importance of taxes in local debates increases in those local communities in which the tax yields collected are larger and in the case of those taxes which are paid by a wider group of tax payers.</list-item><list-item>Who governs in local tax-policy-making ? According to local provisions the proposal of tax resolution is submitted by the mayor, and the local council makes the final decision. But empirical findings suggest that the practice follows the “strong mayor” model, in which the local political leader, supporter by his staff of the financial department, is more influential than the councilors.</list-item></list>Those questions are answered on the basis of field research conducted in 2014 in 36 Polish municipalities. The research methods included content analysis of minutes of local council meetings, as well as face-to-face survey and semi-structured in-depth interviews with over 100 mayors, chiefs of finance departments in city halls and councilors.</abstract>

The paper answers two basic questions:
To what extent is tax policy an important item of the local political agenda in Polish municipalities ? Is it a subject of intense debates at city hall and local councils or is it accepted as a routine exercise ? The results suggest that the issues related to local taxes play a relatively marginal role compared to issues such as the location of major investments. However, the importance of taxes in local debates increases in those local communities in which the tax yields collected are larger and in the case of those taxes which are paid by a wider group of tax payers.Who governs in local tax-policy-making ? According to local provisions the proposal of tax resolution is submitted by the mayor, and the local council makes the final decision. But empirical findings suggest that the practice follows the “strong mayor” model, in which the local political leader, supporter by his staff of the financial department, is more influential than the councilors.Those questions are answered on the basis of field research conducted in 2014 in 36 Polish municipalities. The research methods included content analysis of minutes of local council meetings, as well as face-to-face survey and semi-structured in-depth interviews with over 100 mayors, chiefs of finance departments in city halls and councilors.

The Politics of Local Tax Policy-Making in Poland

Department for Local Development and Policy, Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland.

NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"The Politics of Local Tax Policy-Making in Poland"}

The paper answers two basic questions:
To what extent is tax policy an important item of the local political agenda in Polish municipalities ? Is it a subject...

The Politics of Local Tax Policy-Making in Poland

Published Online: Aug 02, 2016

Page range: 167 - 189

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nispa-2016-0008

Keywords
local government, local taxes, tax policies, mayor, local council

© 2016 NISPAcee

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Politics of Local Tax Policy-Making in Poland

Published Online: Aug 02, 2016

Page range: 167 - 189

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nispa-2016-0008

Keywordslocal government, local taxes, tax policies, mayor, local council

© 2016 NISPAcee

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
local government, local taxes, tax policies, mayor, local council