打印

作者

Daniel McMillen;Ruchi Singh

来源

JOURNAL OF REAL ESTATE FINANCE AND ECONOMICS,Vol.60,Issue1,P.155-169

语言

英文

关键字

Property taxes;Assessment;Regressivity;Income

作者单位

Department of Finance (MC 168)University of Illinois at ChicagoChicagoUSA;Department of Insurance, Legal Studies, and Real Estate, Terry College of BusinessUniversity of GeorgiaAthensUSA

摘要

Homestead exemptions typically produce a moderately progressive statutory incidence for the property tax in the US when progressivity is measured using the ratio of a household’s tax to the sale price of a home. However, the tax is levied on the assessed value of a home rather than the sale. A stylized fact from the assessment literature is that assessment rates tend be lower for higher-priced home. In this paper, we first document the pattern of assessment regressivity. Next, we show that this pattern of regressivity is capable of reversing the statutory progressivity incidence of the property tax, particularly for low-priced homes. We then use HMDA data to show that this pattern of assessment regressivity also leads to regressivity when measured as the ratio of taxes to household income.