Housing Wealth and Tax Preferences Across Europe
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2024-04
Author(s)
Abstract
Despite high and rising wealth inequality, taxes on the assets of wealthy citizens play a marginal role in many countries. Indeed, net wealth or inheritance taxes have been abolished or reduced in many countries in the recent past. While existing explanations for the decline of the taxation of assets focus on structural factors, we advance a complementary argument which highlights the micro-foundations of individuals' tax preferences. We argue that the lukewarm public opposition to tax cuts that only directly benefit the wealthy is aided by information asymmetries which prevent low-wealth individuals from formulating preferences that align with their material self-interest. As such, they effectively cede the political arena to the losers from asset taxation, who express well-informed preferences in line with their economic interests. Utilizing original survey data from Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden, we find empirical support for our thesis. Housing wealth increases the likelihood of stating a preference, and homeowners and their children support less progressive taxation of wealth, inheritances, and capital gains, as well as a greater focus of the tax system on incomes. With rich data on housing wealth and three different taxes from seven European countries, we shed light on the neglected role of wealth in the formation of tax preferences, and our theoretical argument introduces insights from the literature on political representation to the study of the political economy of taxation.
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
No
Event Title
In_equality Conference
Event Location
Konstanz
Event Date
12.04.2024
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
open.access
Name
In_equality tax paper.pdf
Size
1.74 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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