Housing Demand and Property Tax Incidence in a Life-Cycle Framework

Abstract

Studies of tax incidence usually present estimates based on annual data and then simply note that estimates based on lifetime information would be preferable but are precluded by data limitations. This article presents estimates of property tax incidence in both an annual and a life-cycle framework. Under various shifting assumptions, the property tax appears less regressive in a lifetime sense than an annual one. It also appears that transitory influences on measured income may be more important than life-cycle issues in causing annual and lifetime tax incidence profiles to differ .