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Tax and expenditure limits (TELs) are restrictions placed on governments limiting their ability to collect and spend revenue. Residents support these TELs, as they desire lower tax burdens and more government efficiency; yet, residents still desire the same level of public services. Property tax rate limits, a specific type of TEL, are placed upon local governments to limit their ability to collect revenue and expand authority. Rate limits were implemented on the assumption that governments would tax at their highest maximum possible rate, but this is not always the case. This article studies why some local governments choose not to utilize their maximum allotted property tax rate. Using an open systems governance approach, a panel data analysis was conducted using data from 67 Florida counties from 2008 to 2017. Results of the analysis show that the use of special districts and the age of the residential population have significant effects on property tax rate decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a panel dataset for 41 Texas cities from 2000 to 2015, we examine the impact of property tax exemptions on the overall effective property tax burden. Using instrumental variable (IV) analysis, the results show that property tax exemptions are positively correlated with the overall property tax burden. After breaking down exemptions by types, we find that tax relief exemptions, particularly exemptions offered to disabled and senior homeowners, primarily drive the increase in the effective property tax burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article explores the economic aspects of area and value-based taxation of Polish real estate. It begins with the presentation of information on the conditions of property taxation in Poland. Next, a review of the research on the cadastral tax is provided, as well as the assumptions of the econometric model used for mass valuation of the analysed real estate. The main part of the article contains the results of the simulation of replacing the property tax with an ad valorem one. Particular attention is given to the impact of the cadastral tax rate on the revenues of municipalities and changes in the tax burden on individual properties. The main aim of this study was to show the importance of the proper setting of the ad valorem tax rate in the process of reforming the property taxation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the property tax incidence on rented cropland, defined as the extent to which landowners can increase cash rental rates to shift the tax burden of property tax to renters. Using Ohio's Current Agricultural Use Value (CAUV) Program, we are able to avoid issues where the market value of farmland determines the property tax as CAUV assesses farmland in Ohio based on a use‐value formula with historical and state‐wide prices, yields, and costs of corn, soybeans, and wheat. Our results indicate that cash rental rates in Ohio from 2008 through 2017 increased between $0.31 to $0.40 for each additional dollar of property tax levied on cropland in the short run. Further specifications taking into account lagged effects of property tax indicates a higher incidence of $0.61 higher cash rent for each additional dollar of property tax, although this is dispersed over a 3‐year time period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) loans experience high rates of property tax default (IFE, 2016; CFPB, 2012). Given tax burden is predictive of default (Moulton et al., 2015), it is important for HECM participants to take advantage of available property tax relief programs. To examine participation in property tax relief programs, we match loan-level HECM origination records with local administrative tax records for properties in Chicago, IL. We find that nearly 40% of eligible HECM borrowers do not participate in a senior tax relief program for which they meet all eligibility requirements. Further, we find that senior tax relief participation is associated with a reduced probability of property tax default of 60%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the role of partisan politics in determining the local tax burden. Property taxes are the most important revenue source which municipalities in the Netherlands can decide upon themselves. Using a new data set on Dutch local property taxes in 1996, it is concluded that municipalities with a council dominated by left wing parties have a higher tax burden. We also find that larger coalitions have lower levels of taxation. Finally, tax exporting increases tax rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on residential property tax capitalization. Previous research on residential property tax capitalization has been dominated by models estimated with aggregate data. The property tax burden measure used in many of these aggregate studies is the effective tax rate, which accounts for differences in assessment ratios and nominal tax rates among taxing jurisdictions. In this article, a linear capitalization model for micro-level residential property data using the effective tax rate as the measure of tax burden, but estimated using an approach that yields estimates with desirable sample properties has been presented. The tax determinant of property value is specified as being the effective tax rate. While it is correct to argue that the tax bill should be involved in the present valuation formula, that formula does not represent a final form model of property value. Solution of the formula for current value identifies the effective tax rate as determinant. Variables Included to reflect the characteristics of taxing jurisdictions were population density, residence location within city limits, school expenditures per pupil and others.

A great deal has been written in the recent past concerning the incidence of property taxes. According to this view, the main effect of the property tax is to reduce the rate of return on capital-both reproducible and nonreproducible. Thus the current owners of all capital bear the tax in the form of a reduced income on their assets. The traditional view is based on the notion that the supply of land is absolutely fixed but that the supply of reproducible capital is not. With the land supply fixed, the landowners cannot escape the tax burden of the land portion of real property. The application of the property tax, which is an ad valorem tax on capital, would increase the supply price of the reproducible capital in an excise-tax fashion since that capital would not be produced and supplied at a loss. Therefore, the portion of the tax levied on improvements would be passed forward onto the occupant or the consumer of the services or products. The new view recognizes that to the extent that the closed economy's supply of capital is not perfectly inelastic, some of the burden falling on all owners of real property may be shifted. This shifting would decrease saving, which would decrease the reproducible capital stock, which would, in turn, lower wages to labor and decrease total production.

The property tax is not nationwide but differs by jurisdictions. While the average effective rate of tax may be treated in terms of a national tax, departures there from exert a second type of excise effect. Generated by the movement of capital toward low rate jurisdictions, this is the excise effect emphasized in Mieszkowski's formulation. On the earnings side of incidence, the net rent of land and the wages of immobile labour will fall in high and rise in low tax jurisdictions. On the uses side, the excise effect burdens immobile consumers of housing services in high tax jurisdictions. While it is reasonable to expect these interjurisdictional excise effects to be regressive, they are not likely to change the general conclusion reached for a national tax. All this, of course, is compatible with the possibility that the incidence of a local tax increase, taken by itself, will differ from that of a national tax or, for that matter, of an increase in the average rate of local taxes.

The author presents his views on economist Joseph A. Pechman's tax incidence study. According to the author, Pechman is quite right that the ratios of transfer payments to income in the files for 1975 and later years are inconsistent with the corresponding ratios in the 1966 and 1970 files and in the Consumer Population Surveys, particularly in the lower part of the income distribution. In the income distribution, the share of transfer payments in total income is too low in 1975 and later years, the shares of labor and capital income are correspondingly high, and vice versa. The distinct reduction from 1966 to 1985 in the effective tax rates in the top part of the distribution shown in the original calculations remains in the revised estimates. In 1966, those in the top decile paid 30.1 percent of their incomes in taxes; by 1985, theft tax burden had declined to 26.4 percent. In the top percentile, the decline was from 39.6 percent to 25.3 percent. This was the result largely of the reductions in the corporation income tax and the decline in the importance of the property tax during this period.