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Avoiding Taxes by Transfers Within the Family

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We document an episode with considerable tax avoidance that occurred in Italy after 2008 when the Italian government reformed the property taxation by abolishing taxation on principal residences and increasing taxation on secondary properties. In presence of a very low inter vivos gift tax, Italian families found it beneficial to redistribute properties among their members. Difference-in-difference estimates indicate that property tax reform increased the probability that high-wealth donors made an inter vivos property gift by 3 percentage points and the size transferred by 4 square meters relative to less wealthy donors. Our estimates allow us to compute (back of the envelope) the amount of tax avoidance due to inter vivos transfer. The amount is around 78 million euros, or 4 percent of the annual tax revenue from principal residences.

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  • Edoardo Di Porto & Henry Ohlsson, 2016. "Avoiding Taxes by Transfers Within the Family," CSEF Working Papers 436, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:436
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    Cited by:

    1. Kumar, Anil & Liang, Che-Yuan, 2020. "Estimating taxable income responses with elasticity heterogeneity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    2. Edoardo Di Porto & Enrica Maria Martino & Henry Ohlsson, 2021. "Avoiding taxes by transfers within the family," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(1), pages 1-23, February.
    3. Tobias Laun & Johanna Wallenius, 2021. "Having It All? Employment, Earnings, and Children," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(1), pages 353-381, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax avoidance; property taxes; inter vivos gifts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H27 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Other Sources of Revenue
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory

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