IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nse/ecosta/ecostat_2023_541_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Non-Taxation of Imputed Rent: A Gift to Scrooge? Evidence from France

Author

Listed:
  • Montserrat Botey
  • Guillaume Chapelle

Abstract

[eng] The dramatic rise in wealth inequalities has generated debates on the opportunity to tax wealth. Increasing housing prices are, to some extent, driving these widening wealth disparities. This paper examines the potential redistributive impact of taxing imputed rents, which usually are exempt from income taxation. We estimate tax savings and their distribution between households in France by using a fiscal simulator that Landais et al. (2011) developed. We find that while net imputed rents represent 7% of national net income, their non-taxation amounts to hidden fiscal spending (i.e. tax expenditures) totaling up to 11 billion euros annually. This indicates that non-taxation is the largest public spending directed at homeowners, benefiting mostly the oldest and wealthiest households.

Suggested Citation

  • Montserrat Botey & Guillaume Chapelle, 2023. "Non-Taxation of Imputed Rent: A Gift to Scrooge? Evidence from France," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 541, pages 55-79.
    • Handle: RePEc:nse:ecosta:ecostat_2023_541_4
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.24187/ecostat.2023.541.2107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/7738732/04_ES541_Botey-Chapelle_EN.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/https://doi.org/10.24187/ecostat.2023.541.2107?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gabrielle Fack, 2005. "Pourquoi les ménages pauvres paient-ils des loyers de plus en plus élevés ? [L’incidence des aides au logement en France (1973-2002)]," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 381(1), pages 17-40.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. C. Grislain-Letrémy & C. Trevien, 2014. "The Impact of Housing Subsidies on the Rental Sector: the French Example," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2014-08, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    2. Gibbons, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 2006. "The incidence of UK housing benefit: Evidence from the 1990s reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 799-822, May.
    3. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/8309 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. DUCRAY François, 2015. "Should we change national assistance for students and their families?," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2015-23, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    5. Mariona Segú & Benjamin Vignolles, 2016. "Taxing Vacant Apartments: Can fiscal policy reduce vacancy?," Working Papers 2016.02, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    6. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8309 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Segú, Mariona & Vignolles, Benjamin, 2018. "Taxing Vacant Dwellings: Can fiscal policy reduce vacancy?," MPRA Paper 85508, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Corentin Trevien, 2016. "Four essays in empirical urban economics : evaluation of French regional policies [Quatre essais en économie urbaine empirique : évaluation de politiques d'aménagement du territoire]," SciencePo Working papers tel-03498772, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nse:ecosta:ecostat_2023_541_4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Veronique Egloff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inseefr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.