Sensitisation Campaign on Land Taxation Intensifies
Kigali. 09-10 February 2012.
Stakeholders involved in settling landrelated challenges have shown interests in strengthening a campaign aimed at educating the public on land taxation and lease fees reducing confusion among the public on the matter.
Addressing participants at the opening of a two day meeting on land lease and land taxation, Annie Kayiraba the LandNet Rwanda Chapter Coordinator, stressed that her organization intends to start a nationwide awareness program training both local leaders and the public on land tax/ lease fee.
“Our experts will soon start the trainings especially in rural areas and also train local leaders on how to educate their people on land matters,†she said.
Emmanuel Nkurunziza, the director general of Rwanda Natural Resources Authority (RNRA) commended Kayiraba’s initiative and urged other stakeholders to step up the campaign.
“We cannot do the sensitization alone since there’re many issues over the matter and I think most of them resulted from poor communication from our employees that conducted land registration process. They didn’t communicate fully about tax and lease fees for those holding title deeds,†he remarked.
Also district advisory councils mandated to set the tax fees, impose fees in unclear manner. NKurunziza admitted that they are given a certain range of fees to tax but most often the advisory councils tend to impose the higher fees.
Kayiraba argued that the district management should explain clearly to the public how tax rates are fixed since there’re cases of people who are taxed low rates due to favoritism from the advisory councils.
Briefly explaining how the land lease and tax fees are allocated, Nkurunziza noted that the amount is charged in two forms, one is the lease hold which requires an yearly payment of land tax while the second is free hold which exempts the land owner from tax after paying tax for ten years.
He added that in order for one to acquire a free hold for instance they need to prove to the district management that they are going to construct a building or start an activity which is in line with the master plan.
Then later pay the land tax for 10 years, having fulfilled the two one will only be paying the property tax fee of the house they have constructed for example.
“The amount isn’t much since a tax of 0.01% is charged according to the value of the house,†he said.
On the part of land hold, Frw 1000 is charged to land over 2 hectare, this amount is common in the rural but in urban areas the fee can rise according to location of the land.