THE AUSTRALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT TAX BASE: REVENUE POTENTIAL.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine these conflicting points of view. This will involve a comparison of the growth of local government tax bases and revenue collections with those of other bases; consideration of local government taxing policy; and an examination of the incidence of the local government tax. Factors affecting the popularity of the local government tax will be considered. And then the policy implications with respect to local government revenue policy that arise from this discussion will be spelt out. This paper has two important limitations. First, it is concerned only with local governments in urban areas. The problems facing local governments in rural areas and country towns are a different story. Secondly, no consideration is given to the possibility of local governments alleviating any revenue-raising difficulties they may have by relinquishing some of their functions to the State Governments or the Federal Government. This limitation was imposed in order to keep the paper of manageable length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]