Date Published | 8/2/2017 |
Author | Serena Fatica, Doris Prammer |
Theme | Housing Finance Policy |
Country |
This paper by the Housing Finance Consumption Network (HFCN)
of the European Central Bank shows evidence of the size and impact of various
preferential tax treatments of home-ownership across 15 European countries. It
is one of the first comparative studies on this topic for Europe. Using the analytical framework of the user
cost of capital, it finds that owner-occupiers are generally undertaxed. The
user-cost for owner-occupiers is almost 40 percent below the efficient level
under a tenure neutral tax system where the net return to home-occupiers is
fully taxed, which drives up consumption of housing services by close to 8
percent. The bulk of the tax subsidies comes from under-taxation of return on
home-equity, while the average tax-relief for mortgage interest payments is
driven down by low average loan-to value ratios. Nevertheless, the marginal
value of the tax break for mortgage interest is sizable. See link for full report: http://hofinet.org/documents/doc.aspx?id=2845