Property Tax Assessment Practice and Income Elasticities

1978 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Mikesell
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Income Elasticity ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Assessment Practice ◽  
Tax Assessment ◽  
Tax Levies ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Property Tax Assessment

The routines of property tax assessment practiced by state and local governments differ dramatically among jurisdictions. Regardless of particular routine applied (annual assessment, staggered cyclical assessment, or cyclical mass assessment), units often experience wholesale reassessments, and these events have significant impacts on the property tax base. These assessment periods complicate estimates of secular income elasticity of the tax and can, unless corrected, produce forecasts that have unnecessary errors. This paper presents a method for separation of assessment effects from the influence of income changes, applies the method to a cyclical mass assessment state (Indiana), and examines the effects of reassessment on both assessed values and tax levies. Evidence suggests that much of the observed assessed value response over time is reassessment-related. Further, the evidence indicates that, with flexible property tax rates, reassessments are not used as opportunities for concealed property tax levy increases. The findings provide strong support for careful consideration of assessment policy, along with other institutional features, in local fiscal analysis.

Income Redistributive Effects of State and Local Fiscs: Connecticut, a Case Study

1973 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. T. Eapen ◽  
Ana N. Eapen
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Tax Structure ◽  
Tax Progressivity ◽  
Transfer Payments ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Redistributive Effects

Regardless of the alternative assumptions used to allocate taxes and benefits from expenditures of Connecticut state and local governments in 1967, this study shows that the incidence of taxes is regressive while that of expenditures is progressive. The regressivity of the tax structure is overwhelmingly due to the regressivity of the property tax. Progressivity of expenditures stems chiefly from transfer payments, housing, and hospitals which benefit primarily low-income families. On the basis of reasonable assumptions, it is shown that the state and local fiscs bring about, on the average a net redistribution of a mere two percent of income from families with annual incomes of $12,000 and above to those below that level.

How Does a Reduction in Mandated Medicaid Spending Affect Local Fiscal Behaviors? Evidence from New York State

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-547
Author(s):  
Yusun Kim
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
New York State ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Effective Property ◽  
Medicaid Spending ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Sudden Decrease ◽  
The Impact

In 2005, New York (NY) state capped the growth of county-level Medicaid spending, which abruptly decreased counties’ Medicaid outlay in both relative and absolute terms. This study exploits this discontinuity in county Medicaid outlay to estimate the impact of the relief mandate policy on county budgets and property tax levies. It bridges a gap in the public finance literature by addressing local government responses to a sudden decrease in the outlay of a large mandatory spending category. We find a compositional change but no income effect on non-Medicaid spending. However, the policy reduced the effective property tax rate significantly by 6.6 to 8.1 percent on average among affected NY counties after the enactment of the policy relative to control counties. This study advances our understanding of local fiscal responses to an intergovernmental fiscal policy that changes how state and local governments share the costs of a large public social insurance program.

Government and Fiscal Policy in American Economic History

2018 ◽  
pp. 194-224
Author(s):  
John Joseph Wallis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Payroll Taxes ◽  
The Third ◽  
State And Local

Over the last 225 years, government finances in the United States have gone through three distinct stages. In the first stage, 1790–1850, state governments actively pursued policies to promote economic development and financed them from revenues from state investments. In the second, 1850–1930, local governments became the most important level of government, as measured by revenues and expenditures, and revenues shifted toward the property tax. In the third period, 1930 to the present, the national government became the most active and largest level of government, financed through income and payroll taxes, and developed an extensive network of grants to state and local governments. The chapter tracks the changes in sources of revenues and purpose of expenditures, with specific attention paid to military spending over the entire period.

Distributional Impacts of State and Local Tax Policy in a Heterogeneous-agent Model

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 971-1001
Author(s):  
Jorge A. Barro
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Housing Demand ◽  
Tax Burden ◽  
Heterogeneous Agent ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Agent Model ◽  
Sales Taxation ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Tax Deduction

This article presents a dynamic heterogeneous-agent life-cycle model with housing demand to evaluate the economic implications of reforming US state and local personal tax structures. Because of the extensive reliance of state and local governments on income, sales, and property tax revenue, those three taxes are explicitly modeled to generate a baseline and varied to evaluate alternative policy proposals. The results of the model show that the sales tax burden falls evenly across the distribution of income earners, while the property tax burden falls more heavily on the highest income earners. By design, the model’s income tax is progressive, so the tax burden shares rise with income. Results also show that the property tax generally improves utilitarian social welfare relative to income and sales taxation, but the magnitude of these gains depends on the availability of a state and local tax deduction on federal income taxes.

scholarly journals Design of Programs Using Transferable Development Rights to Preserve Farmland in the Northeast

1981 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl C. Mabbs-Zeno
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Land Use Management ◽  
Farmland Preservation ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Tax Assessment ◽  
Transferable Development Rights ◽  
Management Institutions ◽  
Property Tax Assessment

Permanent conversion of agricultural land to urban uses has concerned both suppliers and demanders of agricultural products in recent years. Although controversy on the importance of the problems associated with this conversion persists among economists (General Accounting Office, Healy, Plaut), policymakers across the nation have accepted the preservation of farmland as a goal requiring government action. All but two States (Georgia and Mississippi) provide some form of preferential property tax assessment for farmland (Davies and Beiden). Most localities with zoning authority attempt to protect farmland, and several less common land use management institutions have been implemented with farmland preservation as a principal goal.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document