Fiscal Autonomy in revenue collection of Local Administrative Organizations in Special Economic Zones (SEZs): A Case Study of Mae Sot municipality

Abstract

This artide research is aimed to (1) study the sources of income of Mae Sot municipality (2) study fiscal autonomy in revenue collection of Mae Sot municpality. A qualitative study method was employed as method to analyze related documents, focus group, in-depth interviews from 50's key informants and obsenation without participation were used. The results of the study showed that the income of the Local Administrative Organizations comes from the collected tax by government taxes and government grants causing no fiscal autonomy because they have to rely mainly on income from the povernment in terms of tax collected only 13 percent. Therefore, if the Local Administrative Organizations in the Special Economic Development Zone is independent of fiscal, income must come from the ability to collect taxes and set a tax base on their own especially taxes arising from the use of local resources such as environmental taxes foreign labor fees, senvice fees / travel fees. Therefore, it may conclude that although there was an investment promotion policy from the government for the SEZs, it could not reflect to the distribution of prosperity to the region, the reduction of inequality, the improving of income, and the development of local people life quality.