Rethinking real property assessment and tax management system through an interoperable e-government framework

Abstract

Real property taxation is the major revenue source of local government units (LGUs). However, studies in local finance reported a poor revenue performance on real property collection encumbered by systematic problems, such as outdated valuation standards, lengthy process, and the absence of a centralised electronic database. The difficulties identified are addressed in this paper by redesigning the process through an interoperable real property assessment and tax management system (RPaTS) categorised into three modules. The development of RPaTS adapted the project methodology of Princeton University, and was submitted for software quality evaluation using quantitative methods based on ISO 9126 metrics. The evaluation results show that RPaTS optimised the process by almost 200% or shorten the processing time for a single transaction from 95 to 30 minutes. The respondents also commended its automation feature particularly in updating the schedule of market values (SMV). Overall, end-users gave an average 4.42 Likert score rating.