The Incidence of Transaction Taxes: Evidence from a Stamp Duty Holiday

Timothy Besley, Paolo Surico and Neil Meads

No 10063, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper exploits the 2008-09 stamp duty holiday in the United Kingdom to estimate the incidence of a transaction tax on housing. The average reduction in the after-tax sale price is found to be around £900 against the backdrop of an average tax reduction of about £1500. While we estimate an increase in transactions of properties affected by the tax holiday around 8%, most of this effect appears to have reversed rapidly after the policy was withdrawn, suggesting mostly a short-term retiming of transactions. The findings are calibrated to a simple bargaining model to show they imply that about sixty percent of the surplus generated by the holiday accrued to buyers.

Keywords: Tax holiday; Surplus incidence; Surveyor's evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H22 R32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (73)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The incidence of transaction taxes: Evidence from a stamp duty holiday (2014)
Working Paper: The incidence of transaction taxes: evidence from a stamp duty holiday (2014)
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