What would life be without real estate, and without property taxes and property ownership?
In the municipality of Metepec, Mexico, a province with a population of 214,000, property ownership and taxes have not been the norm.
According to Marco Antonio Vazquez Nava, municipal treasurer, Cadastral and Geographic Information System for Metepec, the municipality’s revenue sharing status has decreased substantially during the last few years.
They needed software for property tax collection. Taxes represent between 4-6% GDP. “There is a huge difference in Latin America,” said Nava. “Property tax in the rest of South America is 4%, but 0% tax is collected in Mexico. The National Institute for Statistics for Mexico (NISM) research shows only 42% of municipalities register property to be taxed.”
For that reason the municipal treasurer department developed a cadastral GIS, which allows the municipality to have efficient and updated, comprehensive cadastral GIS information.
The system guarantees increased resources, so the municipality can offer better goods & services.
The systems affords legal certainty to property owners, by registering each real estate transaction and providing strategic information.
It reports the total number of properties within the municipality as well as unique aspects of the properties, which is a direct benefit for citizens.
This is all due to an informatics application developed in Bentley PowerMap– which identifies differences in cadastral and monitors property values. The cadastre also measures and tracks photogrammetric height, digital orthophotos with a 1:100 ratio, 100% property census, and registers the location of all georeferenced elements.
The cadastre contains 52 information levels, and can identify sectors in which geographic elements are included. It offers transparency, legal certainty, comparable cadastral land values for property tax payment, and equitable property values. Via generated thematic maps property owners and others can access information and benefit from this effort in about four to five years, according to Nava. Property values will be annually updated cadastrally, by square meter.
Nava reports that changes in 83% of the real estate properties they gained
100,000 million pesos in property tax with 130,000 million pesos collected, thereby increasing their budget by 50% and and have made property tax collection more efficient. This also resulted in an increase of 15% social support, 80% increase infrastructure such as sidewalks, schools, and streets.
By 2013-2015, they expect the cadastral GIS to significantly impact education, health, environment and social development, and provide an area of opportunity for learning for all countries in the Latin Americas.
Tangible results of an an electronic platform result in:
-Better debt rating
-Better bank financing rates
-Increased revenue sharing
-Increased public works
-Real estate development
-Better salaries for public officias
-better information of 2,446 municipalities in country
-Access to information
- use as a planning tool to calculate every year value tables that are the basis for making taxes for next year
There are plans to implement the system elsewere in Mexico. as there are 125 municipalities in the state alone.
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