Homeownership Investment and Tax Neutrality. A joint assessment of income and property taxes in Europe

Francesco Figari (), Gerlinde Verbist () and Francesca Zantomio
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Gerlinde Verbist: Centre for Social Policy Herman Deleeck, University of Antwerp

No 2019: 27, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari"

Abstract: Western countries' income tax system exempts the return from investing in owner-occupied housing. Returns from other investments are instead taxed, thus distorting households' portfolio choices, although it is argued that housing property taxation might act as a counterbalance. Based on data drawn from the Statistics of Income and Living Conditions and the UK Family Resources Survey, and building on tax benefit model EUROMOD, we provide novel evidence on the interplay of income and property taxation in budgetary, efficiency and equity terms in eight European countries. Results reveal that, even accounting for recurrent housing property taxation, a sizeable ‘homeownership bias' i.e. a lighter average and marginal taxation for homeownership investment, is embedded in current tax systems, and displays heterogeneous distributional profiles across different countries. Housing property taxation represents only a partial correction towards neutrality.

Keywords: Homeownership investment; tax neutrality; income tax; property tax; distributional effect; Europe; microsimulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 H23 I31 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-eur, nep-pbe and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Homeownership Investment and Tax Neutrality: a Joint Assessment of Income and Property Taxes in Europe (2022)
Working Paper: Homeownership Investment and Tax Neutrality: a joint assessment of income and property taxes in Europe (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ven:wpaper:2019:27

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