Financing Punjab’s cities: Land and property taxes workshop

IGC Pakistan and Cities that Work co-hosted an interactive roundtable workshop on property taxes with the Government of Punjab with support from the Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR).

The workshop is part of IGC's engagement with the Government of Punjab to support its tax reform agenda by strengthening revenue from property and land. It also builds upon a critical policy juncture, the enactment of Punjab Local Government Bill 2019. The roundtable supported this engagement by bringing together senior policymakers from Punjab Government, including the heads of departments of finance, local government and excise and taxation, along with key public finance researchers and practitioners. Two provincial cabinet officials attended the workshop: the Punjab Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bahky and the Economic Advisor Dr. Salman Shah.

The workshop was organised around the following topics:

• The role of property and land taxes in Punjab’s tax reform agenda;
• Trade-offs between various property tax valuation models;
• Importance of intra-governmental fiscal framework for property tax;
• Establishing data and administrative capacity for property taxation;
• Outlining future engagement between policymakers and researchers.

The workshop was followed by sideline meetings with the Departments of Finance and the Excise and Taxation.

The attendance of the workshop was by invitation only.

Date: 1st September 2019

Venue: Pearl Continental Hotel, Lahore

For more information please feel free to contact Hina Shaikh,  Shahrukh Wani or Ali Cheema.