Testing Flypaper Effect in municipal Sharing Tax Revenue in Iran

Municipalities use three kind of resource including toll, local tax, sharing tax revenue and intergovernmental transfers. By acting laws such as Value Added Tax law, major revenue of municipalities is financed from sharing tax revenue associated with VAT. Distributing sharing tax revenue associated with VAT is in a way that involves sum kind of fiscal illusion that is called flypaper effect. This paper is trying to test flypaper effect in concentrated sharing tax revenue associated with VAT (adapted in Note (2), Article (39) VAT law) in cities of Iran. For this purpose, a regression model with dummy variables is used and flypaper effect coefficient is estimated separately for municipalities with different grades. Results show there is no flypaper effect in concentrated sharing tax revenue for none of municipalities; however, flypaper effect coefficient for metropolitans and small towns are larger than other municipalities. It could be a basis for choosing the intergovernmental grants methods for different municipalities.