1. 1 Finishing Up Property Tax © Allen C. Goodman, 2008

2. 22 Analyzing the property tax If we look at land, labor, and capital, the property tax is a tax on plant, land, and equipment, but not on labor. As a result property tax will be borne by –Owners of the property and/or –Consumers of the goods that are made by the taxed. Much of the analysis comes from an (almost entirely unreadable) article by Peter Mieszkowski, “The Property Tax: An Excise Tax or a Profits Tax,” Journal of Public Economics, 1972 Also McLure, Charles E., Jr., "The 'New View' of the Property Tax: A Caveat,". National Tax Journal, Vol. 30 (March 1977), pp. 69-75

3. 33 How Mobile is Capital? From town to town, ultimately pretty mobile. For the country as a whole, possibly not very mobile. What does this mean? Suppose the supply elasticity of capital is 0! S $ Amount of Capital D = MP capital Income from Capital r0r0

4. 44 If we impose a national property tax? Effective demand shifts down. S $ Amount of Capital D = MP capital Income from Capital r0r0 (1-t)r 0 Who pays the tax? TAX Why?

5. 55 We don’t have a national property tax … but Suppose we have 1000 municipalities and none of them impose a property tax. Now, suppose that one of them (Southfield) imposes a 2% property tax. We want to look at Southfield … and at the rest of the world. What happens to capital in Southfield … and what happens elsewhere?

6. 66 Southfield … and elsewhere Southfield LR Supply, why? Demand $ Amount of Capital Elsewhere LR Supply, why? Demand $ Amount of Capitalb0b0 B0B0 After-Tax Demand

7. 77 Where does the capital go? Southfield LR Supply Demand $ Amount of Capital Elsewhere LR Supply Demand $ Amount of Capitalb0b0 B0B0 After-Tax Demand Everywhere Else! B1B1 b1b1

8. 88 What has happened? Southfield LR Supply Demand $ Amount of Capital Elsewhere Demand $ Amount of Capitalb0b0 B0B0 After-Tax Demand B1B1 b1b1 Price of capital went up a LOT in Southfield This is an excise tax effect! Return to capital went down by 0.02/1000 Elsewhere. LR Supply Prices of items made with capital in Southfield  a lot. Prices of items made with capital elsewhere  a little.

9. 99 Remember This was only 1 city in 1,000. Suppose a second city passes a 2% property tax.  Big excise tax there; little capital tax elsewhere. Suppose eventually that every one of them passes a 2% property tax. What do you have? A national property tax!

10. 10 What has happened? Southfield LR Supply Demand $ Amount of Capital Elsewhere Demand $ Amount of Capitalb0b0 B0B0 After-Tax Demand B1B1 b1b1 r 0 (1 – 0.02) Allocation of capital is the same as at the beginning. Return is 2% lower! LR Supply r 0 (1 – 0.02)

11. 11 So … what do we have? The tax differentials between jurisdictions function as excise taxes (if there is a “national” property tax of 2%, then a jurisdiction w/ taxes of 3% will incur excise tax effects). The overall weighted property tax functions as a national tax on capital and land.

12. 12 Incidence Incidence depends on: –Excise tax effects (probably somewhat regressive) –Capital ownership effects (probably somewhat progressive).

13. 13 Who pays? Carroll and Yinger (1994) look at $1.00 increase in city property taxes used to produce $1.00 of services for renters. They find that landlords bear between 70 and 91% of the increase because tenants are relatively more mobile than landlords.

14. 14 Is Property Tax Progressive, Regressive? This has long been debated. The “traditional” view was the property tax as an excise tax. If so, it is passed forward to the purchasers of the goods that are produced. If this is the case, it might be thought to be regressive. Why?

15. 15 Purchase of taxable goods relative to income If income = y, and goods expenditures are pq, then property taxes add some percentage t to that. Suppose X = a + by. Tax = tX = t * (a + by) Income, y Taxable Goods Expenditures, pq = X X = y X = a + by As y , X/y , or pq/y , or (1+t)pq . Taxes are tpq. Tax starts as big proportion of income and falls. Tax = tX Slope = Tax/y Slope  as y 

16. 16 Recall the relation between V and R We saw that V = R/i, where i = interest rate. Rewrite as R = iV; can think of i as the “user cost” of capital. If the landlord passes along property tax to renter, then R = (i + t)V. Suppose that V = 100,000 and i is 6%  $6,000 per year of rent ($500 per month). If t = 0.1, R would be 0.07*100,000 or $7,000 per year. A 1 percentage point increase in property tax  a 0.01/0.075 (why?) or 13.3% increase in housing costs.

17. 17 As a capital tax With the recognition that property tax may be a tax on capital, the progressive/regressive analysis also comes to rest on ownership of capital. If capital ownership as income , then property tax has progressive elements.

18. 18 As a capital tax With the recognition that property tax may be a tax on capital, the prog/reg analysis also comes to rest on ownership of capital. If capital ownership as income , then property tax has progressive elements.

19. 19 … and there’s the benefit view We talked about how if property taxes finance benefits, maybe they are neither progressive or regressive. Supporters of benefit tax view point to Tiebout sorting. Supporters of capital tax view say that there aren’t enough communities to work for Tiebout sorting – certainly central cities don’t fall under this analysis.

20. 20 An Interesting Article

21. 21 Bradbury, Katherine, Christopher Mayer, and Karl Case. “Property Tax Limits and Local Fiscal Behavior: Did Massachusetts Cities and Towns Spend Too Little on Town Services under Proposition 2½ ?” Journal of Public Economics, 80 (2) (2001), 287-312.Journal of Public Economics This paper examines the impact of a specific property tax limit, Proposition 2½ in Massachusetts, on the fiscal behavior of cities and towns in Massachusetts and the capitalization of that behavior into property values. Proposition 2½ passed in November 1980. Proposition 2½ places a cap on the effective property tax rate at 2.5% and limits nominal annual growth in property tax revenues to 2.5%, unless residents pass a referendum allowing a greater increase.

22. 22 Initial Result The initial result of Proposition 2½ in many municipalities was to reduce effective property tax rates to 2.5%; 191 of the 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth (54%) had effective tax rates in fiscal year 1980 that were higher than 2.5%. Jurisdictions could lower their tax rates in two ways: (1) by reducing their tax levy and (2) by raising the estimated market value of local property. While moving to full-value assessment helped some municipalities cut tax rates, about 45% of the Commonwealth’s cities and towns also had to reduce their levies to bring their tax rate down. Just over one-third of the communities (124 of 351) needed only 1 year of property tax reductions; another 9% needed to cut their levies for 2 (24) or even 3 (9) years to bring their rates down to the 2.5% tax rate ceiling. Remember tax rate t = T/V Remember tax rate t = T/V t  if T  t  V 

23. 23 What the study does The study analyzes the 1990–1994 period, a time when Massachusetts municipalities faced significant fiscal stress because of a 30% cut in real state aid and a demographically driven increase in school enrollments. The findings include the following: (1) Proposition 2½ significantly constrained local spending in some communities, with most of its impact on school spending; (2) constrained communities realized gains in property values to the degree that they were able to increase school spending despite the limitation; and (3) changes in non-school spending had little impact on property values.

24. 24 How do they do it? This study looks at the impact of a specific tax limit, Proposition 2½ on the fiscal behavior of cities and towns in Massachusetts and the effects of that behavior on property values. Proposition 2½ places a cap on the effective property tax rate at 2.5% and limits nominal annual growth in property tax revenues to 2.5%, unless residents pass a referendum (an override) allowing a greater increase. The authors explore whether towns that face larger barriers to raising additional tax revenue spend less on local services and thereby become less attractive to potential home buyers. Differences across communities in pre-Proposition 2½ tax rates and conditions allow a comparison of the fiscal decisions (expenditure patterns) of more and less constrained communities and the capitalization of that behavior into house prices. If movers in any period find one town more attractive than another, they will bid up the price of housing in the more attractive town. To the extent that cutting local public spending makes a community less desirable, increases in local spending will be associated with rising housing prices.

25. 25 Beginning … They begin by estimating the relationship between town spending and constraints imposed by Proposition 2½ between 1990 and 1994, a time when Massachusetts cities and towns faced strong budget pressures because of the coincidence of two factors: a steep decline in real state aid and a sizable increase in school enrollments. The estimates indicate that cities and towns that faced tighter Proposition 2½ budget constraints reduced their expenditures relative to communities that faced fewer constraints. Furthermore, these relative reductions were not proportional across all spending categories; the evidence shows that Proposition 2½ had a more profound impact on local school spending than on the rest of the local budget.

26. 26 … and Reductions in spending could represent undesirable service cuts forced by the constraint or exactly the kind of change that backers of Proposition 2½ wanted. The original premise behind Proposition 2½ was that local officials had a tendency to spend ‘too much’ unless checked by the voters. Thus, the second part of the paper correlates changes in house prices with changes in spending. To the degree that the premise behind Proposition 2½ is correct, towns that reduce their spending should see their house prices rise faster than those of other communities. Alternatively, if Proposition 2½ makes it more difficult for communities to achieve residents’ preferred level of spending, house prices should fall in towns that reduce their expenditures. Do they  Do they 

27. 27 The Evidence The evidence indicates that Proposition 2½ did affect local house prices through changes in town spending House prices performed worse in communities that had slower increases in spending, suggesting that Proposition 2½ led communities to spend ‘too little’ on services. Communities also did not appear to optimize their spending mix; increases in school spending have a strong positive effect on house prices, while the coefficient on the nonschool spending variable is not statistically different from zero. If goal is to maximize house prices, what should they be doing?

28. 28 Fig. 1. Massachusetts State Government expenditures on local aid.

29. 29 Fig. 2. Massachusetts K-12 public school enrollments.

30. 30 Fig. 3. Proposition 2½ constraints and overrides.

31. 31 Table 2. Spending regression results. Dependent variable: percent change in school or nonschool spending, fiscal years 1990–1994 In the school spending equation (col. 1), the Proposition 2½ variables are almost all individually statistically different from zero, and in all but one case (‘at levy limit, no overrides’) have the anticipated sign. The magnitude of the coefficients suggests that constraints imposed by Proposition 2½ limited school spending to a great extent in many communities. While the average community increased educational spending by 15%, towns that had previously passed an override increased spending by another 6 percentage points. Communities with leeway to raise revenue without an override (ample ‘excess capacity’) typically did so: other things equal, a town whose levy was 5% below its levy limit raised spending 2 percentage points more than a town 0.1% below.

32. 32 Table 3. House price regression results. Dependent variable: percent change in house prices, fiscal years 1990–1994 In col. (1), coefficient on changes in school spending is + and differs sig. from zero. A town that  its school spending 1 std. dev. (8.6%) more than average saw its house prices  about 2% more than a community with the average  in school spending (ave. community saw a  in house prices of 7.7%). When the larger set of instruments is included, col. (2), the differences between the estimated coefficients for school and nonschool spending are even more pronounced. The coefficient on school spending falls from 0.23 to 0.16, but is still sig. different from 0, while the coefficient on nonschool spending becomes slightly neg. and remains statistically indistinguishable from 0 at conventional confidence levels.

33. 33 Conclusions – Proponents and Skeptics Proposition 2½’s proponents and skeptics disagree about whether (1) the restraints were needed to rein in runaway taxes and spending that local voters apparently were unable to control on their own, or (2) prevented residents from obtaining services they desired and for which they would have been willing to pay. The research results in this article support the latter view. House price data indicate that potential residents of constrained cities and towns (but not unconstrained communities) were willing to pay a premium for increases in school spending. These findings imply constrained communities were spending too little on schools by the end of the 1980s. Put another way, potential home purchasers considered the attraction of increases in school spending during the 1990–1994 period to outweigh the costs of increased taxes to pay for them. Thus, Proposition 2½ had negative consequences for housing demand, and hence home prices, in the communities in which it was binding through its effect on school spending.