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The Dynamic Efficiency Cost of Not taxing Housing

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Jonathan Skinner

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Abstract

Housing assets comprise nearly one-third of household wealth rot effectively escape income taxation. When housing is included in the life cycle model, the capital income tax is shown to be far more distortionary than previously thought. The reason is that capital income taxation stimulates the price of (untaxed) housing capital and thereby crowds out nonhousing wealth in the long-run. Even when aggregate saving is unaffected by the after-tax rate of return, the crowding out of nonhousing wealth erodes the tax base end generates very high measures of marginal excess burden. Movements in U.S. aggregate wealth are consistent with the predictions of the model. Overall household wealth as a ratio of national income in 1989 is nearly identical to the ratio in 1955, but the ratio of housing assets to nonhousing wealth has grown by 30 percent since 1970. In short, capital income taxation may attenuate capital accumulation through its impact on housing prices rather than through traditional incentive effects.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 3454.

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Date of creation: Sep 1990
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3454

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  1. Eerola , Essi & Määttänen , Niku, 2005. "The optimal tax treatment of housing capital in the neoclassical growth model," Research Discussion Papers 10/2005, Bank of Finland. [Downloadable!]
  2. repec:bep:mactop:v:6:y:2006:i:2:p:1393-1393 is not listed on IDEAS
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  3. Antonia Diaz & Maria Jose Luengo Prado, 2008. "On the User Cost and Homeownership," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 584-613, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Annamaria Lusardi & Jonathan Skinner & Steven Venti, 2001. "Saving Puzzles and Saving Policies in the United States," NBER Working Papers 8237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Ian Parry, 2002. "Tax Deductions and the Marginal Welfare Cost of Taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 9(5), pages 531-552, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Martin Gervais, 1998. "Housing Taxation and Capital Accumulation," UWO Department of Economics Working Papers 9807, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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