The implementation of environment cleaning tax as a local government financing instrument (Manisa city case)

ABSTRACT Today, as it happened in the past, the provision of the public services to community is shared between central government and local governments. The functions, authorities, responsibilities and financial sources of local governments which are used by them differentiate from country to country according to the state systems adopted. But generally it has been known that central government takes greater share from national income than local government in order to finance public services and under different names. On the other hand, it is also clear that rapid and untidy urbanization arising with the reasons such as population growth, industrialization and migration increase severely the demand for municipal services in terms of quantity and quality. So it can be said that local governments, particularly municipalities, are suffering from revenue insufficiency. One of solution ways to this problem of municipalities which are the suppliers of local public goods and services in municipal areas is the compensating of financial burden of these services from voters who consume services. In this finance method which can essentially be expressed as the implementation of benefit approach in taxation into local public finance, the instruments such as benefit taxes and user charges are used. This approach has been ratherly adopted in federal countries and the examination of its functionability within unitary state structure is important. The Environment Cleaning Tax which has put into execution in order to provide revenue for municipalities and to provide finance for solid waste and wastewater disposal services taking part among the duties of municipalities in our country is a result of this approach. In this context in our thesis, the financing methods of local governments have been examined, and later the revenues and expenditures of municipalities in Turkey have been analysed. In the study by taking this tax as a base, it has been researched the solution possibilities to financial problems of municipalities through allocated taxes in unitary state system. But the implementation in Manisa City Municipality has been included into subject due to the examined tax has only three years past. According to the results obtained, the aforementioned tax, as candidate, appears to contribute into the solution of finance problems of municipalities with the condition that some mulfunctions in the execution should be corrected. The implementation in Manisa City Municipality ; has resulted in this way. On the other side, it has been determined that the tax can be restructured as an environmental tax with convenient adjustments besides its aim for solution to the financial problems of municipalities.