Housing taxation: international perspectives

Aggravating housing affordability across the EU has put a new spotlight on tax and benefits for residential housing. While an exhaustive toolbox to mold monetary and financial policy tools is likely to manage financial stability risks related to property prices, affecting affordability is beyond their scope. In contrast, fiscal policy tools such particular housing tax and benefits systems had so far reacted far less to escalating property prices. In this vein, research and policy experiments over the past decade have delivered new insights regarding the effects of taxation tools in influencing the trad-offs between financial stability, the availability of new housing construction, and the attainment of residential and urban emissions objectives. This workshop thus aims to bring together fiscal and taxation experts from academia and the Commission in order to summarize the literature consensus on which existing national tax and benefits tools are the most beneficial and detrimental in the trade-off between affordability, stability, investment and climate objectives.