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A Study on Ways to Improve Local Finance through Discussion on Government Revenues and Expenditures: The Example of Kaohsiung City

Abstract
Democratic politics is founded on local self-government, while promotion and advancement of local self-government rely on abundant local finance. There is a Chinese saying, ¡§finance is the mother of general affairs,¡¨ which refers to finance as the foundation for performing general affairs. As far as our country is concerned, local financial shortage has become a long-term issue. All the city and county governments do not have enough revenues to afford various expenditures. The unbalance between revenues and expenditures results in a wider and wider financial gap. Local governments cannot afford various expenditures or proceed with local infrastructure without debts or subsidies.
Kaohsiung City has been in a difficult position of financial shortage in recent years as well, despite being a municipality. The growth rate of annual revenues is far lower than the increase rate of annual expenditures; on the other hand, the government becomes more and more dependent on subsidies every year. As a result, the financial autonomy is lowered, and the financial gap becomes wider as the government still has to owe debts to correspond to the expenditures. A comprehensive review is thus urgently needed, in order to come up with a set of complete and effective plans to improve financial balance and gradually restore sound and stable financial systems.
This study investigated and analyzed the financial issues of Kaohsiung City through literature review, secondary data analysis, and empirical analysis, in order to have a solid understanding of the problems concerning the financial status, revenues and expenditures of Kaohsiung City, and to further probe into the influential factors that cause the difference between the revenues and expenditures of Kaohsiung City. It is hoped that this study can help understand the current local financial problems, find strategies to resolve the unbalance between revenues and expenditures, and draw up adequate solution plans, in order to solve the financial problems that Kaohsiung City is facing.
Therefore, this study provides the following suggestions: strengthen collection of various taxes to increase treasury income; actively seek new financial resources to enhance self-governing financial power; encourage industries to make investment in Kaohsiung; strive to explore tourism resources to create a solid foundation for growth of tax revenues with prosperous economy; review organization functions and merge agencies with overlapping functions to cut financial expenditures; and encourage public participation in public infrastructure and revive economic activities of private enterprises.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0823107-115452
Date23 August 2007
CreatorsLee, She-hsia
ContributorsSj-Shyen ,Sun, Yu-Shan , Jhang, Ji-Hwa , Wu
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0823107-115452
Rightsnot_available, Copyright information available at source archive

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