In recent years, the summer period has become a boom time for those with an interest in the public finances. The past few weeks have seen a number of releases in the area including the Government’s Summer Economic Statement and IFAC’s Fiscal Assessment Report. The upcoming National Economic Dialogue will also spur debate in advance of Budget 2017.
With this in mind, readers might be interested in recent work published by myself and Kieran McQuinn (ESRI) in the Journal of European Real Estate Research examining the sustainable nature of housing related taxes in Ireland. Using a 3 pronged modelling approach we quantify the extent of housing related tax windfall gains and losses over a 30 year period as a result of disequilibrium in the housing market. We find that the fiscal position compatible with equilibrium in the housing market has at times diverged greatly from actual outturns both during the boom, the collapse and in the subsequent recovery.
The paper highlights the role played by the housing market in influencing the tax take and above all points to the need for a more granular approach to be taken in tax forecasting within Ireland. A link to the paper can be found here: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/JERER-01-2016-0004 with an older working paper version available here: http://www.esri.ie/publications/assessing-the-sustainable-nature-of-housing-related-taxation-receipts-the-case-of-ireland/.