The impact of mortgage interest tax relief in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Italy and Greece

Arbeitspapier

Fiscal welfare, i.e. the use of the tax system to achieve social policy goals, is assuming ever greater importance throughout Europe and beyond. In housing, the favourable tax treatment of mortgage interest repayments has often coexisted alongside public programmes of housing benefit or social housing. Although the distributional effects of tax expenditure are known to be regressive, the issue has remained relatively under-researched. The paper uses the European tax-benefit model EUROMOD to quantify the distributional impact of mortgage interest tax relief in five European countries: the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Italy and Greece. The analysis reveals that higher-income groups capture a disproportionate share of total expenditure on mortgage interest tax relief in all countries, and that this effect is most regressive in the Netherlands and least regressive in Sweden. The paper concludes with a discussion of results and their policy implications.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: EUROMOD Working Paper ; No. EM2/07

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies ; Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs ; Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Housing Demand
• Subject: tax relief ; mortgage repayments ; inequality ; microsimulation ; Wohnungsbaufinanzierung ; Hypothek ; Steuerrechtliche Abschreibung ; Einkommensverteilung ; Simulation ; Niederlande ; Schweden ; Finnland ; Italien ; Griechenland

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Matsaganis, Manos ; Flevotomou, Maria
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Essex, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER)
• (where): Colchester
• (when): 2007

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/68954
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET