IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v42y1983i2p209-216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Property Tax Circuit‐breakers: Good Causes but Bad Economics

Author

Listed:
  • William T. Harris

Abstract

. Since 1965, 30 states and the District of Columbia have enacted programs designed to reduce the effective rate of property taxation for some low income households and for the elderly. Most often this relief is provided by so‐called “circuit‐breakers.” It is contended that the economic arguments favoring circuit‐breakers are empirically unproven and theoretically suspect. The tax may be progressive, not regressive, and the device may transfer income from low to high income households. Any short run redistribution of income to favor the poor or the elderly would, in the long run, merely shift the timing of their tax payments. Circuit‐breakers encourage over‐consumption of housing and misallocation of housing resources. Reducing the tax base, they produce higher rates and so increase the tax burden.

Suggested Citation

  • William T. Harris, 1983. "Property Tax Circuit‐breakers: Good Causes but Bad Economics," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 209-216, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:42:y:1983:i:2:p:209-216
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1983.tb01706.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1983.tb01706.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1983.tb01706.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:42:y:1983:i:2:p:209-216. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.