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Capital Income Taxation with Housing

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  • Makoto Nakajima

Abstract

This paper quantitatively investigates capital income taxation in the general-equilibrium overlap-ping generations model with household heterogeneity and housing. Housing tax policy is found to affect how capital income should be taxed, due to substitution between housing and non-housing capital. Given the existing U.S. preferential tax treatment for owner-occupied housing, the optimal capital income tax rate is close to zero (1%), contrary to the high optimal capital income tax rate found with overlapping generations models without housing. A low capital income tax rate improves welfare by narrowing a tax wedge between housing and non-housing capital; the narrowed tax wedge indirectly nullifies the subsidies (taxes) for homeowners (renters) and corrects over-investment to housing. Naturally, when the preferential tax treatment for owner-occupied housing is eliminated, a high capital income tax rate improves welfare as in the model without housing.

Suggested Citation

  • Makoto Nakajima, 2020. "Capital Income Taxation with Housing," Working Papers 20-02, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:86734
    DOI: 10.21799/frbp.wp.2020.02
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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Capital Income Taxation with Housing
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2020-01-27 04:15:30

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    3. Fischer, Thomas, 2023. "Spatial inequality and housing in China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Incomplete Markets; Capital Income Taxation; Heterogeneous Agents; Overlapping Generations; Housing; Life Cycle; Optimal Taxation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand

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