Development of Gis-Based Tax Information System for County Government

Property tax is one of the most important sources of income for the City Council of Nairobi and accounts for nearly one third of its annual revenues. This source of revenue is the least tapped source of revenue that supports urban governments in Africa. Rates are essentially a local tax paid by occupiers of land and buildings as a contribution towards local services. In Kenya, discussions on property taxation are becoming increasingly important within the various authorities as more responsibilities are devolved to county governments. As Nairobi city is expanding rapidly, new structures are coming up along all the transportation corridors. Since rates are payable on immovable property it is impossible to avoid paying them and therefore local authorities have a stable form of income. So it is imperative to assess all these new and existing built up structures integrating with land parcels and maintain an effective database for easy collection of property taxes. The aim of the project is to develop a GIS based Tax Information System enabling spatial query, visualization, efficient updating and processing of property tax records.