Ménages et entreprises : qui sont les principaux contributeurs à la fiscalité locale foncière ?. Apports des Fichiers Fonciers à la connaissance de la géographie fiscale locale

This paper discusses the contribution of the Land Files Database to the geographic analysis of local governments’ tax income. Recent tax reforms in France have increased the weight of land taxes in local governments’ fiscal resources. While local land taxes are paid by both households and firms, previous local tax databases did not allow to discriminate between these various types of taxpayers. The Land Files Database fills the deficiencies of other databases by providing data on the tax contribution of business land and premises at the municipal scale. Building on the case of Aix-Marseille’s metropolitan area, the paper identifies research avenues for the analysis of spatial inequalities between local governments and the role of the geography and sectoral structure of the local economy. The results show major spatial variations between municipalities in the amount and in the weight of land taxes’ income. While firms are the major contributor to local governments’ tax mix in the majority of municipalities, several of them depend rather on households’ contribution. The share of land taxes in the tax mix of local governments depends on urbanization patterns as well as on the sectoral specialization of local areas. The data also show that tax revenue for each job vary between economic sectors. These results provide new insight on local governments’ potential strategies to capture and maximize tax incomes and on planning choices between housing and economic activities. These data also are of special interest in the context of recent efforts of the central State to regulate land consumption.