Baloosoft

Africa is the fastest urbanizing continent on the planet.

African cities need sufficient and sustainable revenues to provide adequate public goods and services for its citizens. The booming urbanization represents a significant opportunity to increase the proportion of tax collected from property.

Baloosoft’s MOPTAX system facilitates a progressive property taxation process in markets where a well-developed real estate market is absent.

To learn more on how property taxation could improve life quality in developing nations’ cities, browse through the African Property Tax Initiative Library here:

African Property Tax Initiative Library Africa is the fastest urbanising continent on the planet. In order to provide citizens with adequate public goods and services and invest in the required infrastructure, African cities need sufficient and sustainable revenues. Property taxation is equitable, and provides stable funding for local gov...

The OECD countries on average generate around 2 percent of GDP in property taxes equivalent to 5.5 percent of total tax base. In low-income developing countries property taxes account for merely 0.3 percent of GDP equivalent to only 1.8 percent of total tax base.

However, the difference is not surprising. In most countries, property taxes are collected by local governments, and good information on property ownership and on the base for valuing property is hard to obtain in developing countries’ thin markets for property transactions.

Therefore, the MOPTAX system by Baloosoft supports a points-based valuation approach, assisting local governments in discovery and progressive valuation of properties.

Read this 2018 article by Center for Global Development to learn why it is time to revisit and unleash the potential of property taxation in the developing world.

On the Equity-Friendly Property Tax: Time for Developing Countries to Invest? A large proportion of revenue gains over the last two decades has come from countries’ efforts to improve the design and compliance of consumption and other indirect taxes, particularly the VAT (value-added tax); in doing so, the objective has been to minimize VAT’s regressive effects by exempti...

The Economist quotes Freetown’s new property tax system as having found a “sweet spot; It is simple to administer, efficient and fair.”

Mayor of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, Ms. Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr wants to reduce aid dependency by revamping property taxation. The Mayor wants a progressive and fully digitized property tax system.

Through a combination of sound financial E-Governance systems and expert policy advisory, Baloosoft has supported the Freetown City Council in achieving their reform ambitions - unleashing its property tax potential. Read more about the project here:

A mayor is reforming Sierra Leone’s rotten property tax Other African cities should follow suit | Middle East & Africa