When tax authority and land authority diverge: property tax reform and institutional persistence in Ghana

This article explains why Ghana’s weak, building-focused property rating regime has persisted despite fiscal arguments for bringing land value more directly into local revenue systems. It argues that the problem lies not only in poor records, valuation constraints, weak enforcement, and low compliance but also in the relationship between the tax authority and the land authority. Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies have formal authority to raise property rates, yet the land relations needed to support land-based taxation, including information, valuation evidence, liability, legitimacy, and revenue expectations, remain partly shaped by customary authority. The article develops the concept of tax authority/land authority divergence to explain how land-based property tax reform can be constrained when the authority to tax and the authority to define, allocate, and legitimate land rights do not fully coincide. Drawing on documentary analysis, historical evidence, and 32 qualitative interviews, it shows how Ghana’s building-focused regime can remain fiscally weak but institutionally durable: it gives local governments a formal property tax instrument while leaving land value largely outside the recurrent local tax base.