The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 and Homeownership: Is Smaller Now Better?

Amelia Biehl () and William Hoyt ()
Additional contact information
Amelia Biehl: Department of Economics, University of Southern Indiana

No 2009-04, Working Papers from University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations

Abstract: Prior to 1997, homeowners under 55 were allowed to defer capital gains taxes from a home sale if they bought another house at least as expensive, while those over 55 received a capital gains exclusion regardless of the cost of their new home. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA97) eliminated this differential tax treatment. We exploit the differential treatment before 1997 to uncover TRA97’s effects. Comparing homeowners under 55 before and after 1997, we find that those who moved after 1997 are twice as likely as to list “seeking less expensive housing” as a reason for moving, 8 percent less likely to own their residences and 9 percent less likely to live in a single family home.

Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2009-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ifigr.org/publication/ifir_working_papers/IFIR-WP-2009-04.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: THE TAXPAYER RELIEF ACT OF 1997 AND HOMEOWNERSHIP: IS SMALLER NOW BETTER? (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ifr:wpaper:2009-04

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by David E. Wildasin ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).