Property Tax Incidence and Housing Market in Taiwan (Chu, 2026)

Summary

"Property tax incidence and housing market in Taiwan," by Shiou-Yen Chu, appeared in International Tax and Public Finance (2026). The paper builds a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model of Taiwan's housing market, calibrated to the 2011–2015 period when Taiwan introduced a real-estate transfer tax and tightened loan-to-value (LTV) ratios in response to a speculative housing boom — the same policy episode the wiki's Taiwan land policy coverage otherwise treats mainly through the older Sun Yat-sen / land value increment tax lineage rather than this modern macro-financial angle.

The Core Finding: Recurring Beats One-Off

Chu's model distinguishes wealth-accumulation owner-occupiers from speculative investors and compares the effects of three policy levers on housing speculation and prices: a recurring residential property tax, a one-off transfer tax (paid at the point of sale), and a tightened loan-to-value ratio. The headline result is a durability contrast: the recurring property tax (along with higher interest rates) produces prolonged, durable effects curbing speculative transactions and taming price growth, while the transfer tax and LTV tightening produce only short-lived effects that fade as the market adjusts around them.

Relation to the Georgist Case

This is directly on-point quantitative evidence for a specific Georgist claim the wiki otherwise supports mostly through historical case studies: that a recurring holding cost on land/property is the effective lever against speculation, while transaction-based taxes (which only bite at the moment of sale) can be planned around and lose their bite over time. It is the modeling complement to the wiki's speculative vacancy and 18-year land cycle material, and a useful East Asian data point alongside the wiki's existing property-tax incidence literature (Mieszkowski, Song & Zenou), most of which is US/UK-anchored.

Nuances and Limits

• Full text not independently verified. Both WebFetch and curl returned bot-blocked responses (Cloudflare "Client Challenge") for the Springer-hosted article this session; this page is built from third-party search-result summaries of the paper's findings, not a direct read. Graded C-claim throughout; [VERIFY] flag retained for a future session with different network egress to re-attempt the primary source.
• A DSGE model, not a natural experiment. The finding is a calibrated theoretical model's prediction, not a reduced-form causal estimate from observed pre/post variation — it should be read as a structural mechanism claim consistent with, but not equivalent to, quasi-experimental evidence.
• Property tax, not pure land value tax. Like most property-tax-incidence literature the wiki cites, Chu's model studies conventional (land + improvements) taxation rather than an LVT specifically; the durability finding supports recurring taxation of real property generally and only by extension the land-only case.

Bears On

• Concept: Speculative Vacancy — a formal modeling result for why recurring (not transaction) taxes are the effective anti-speculation lever.
• Objection: LVT Transition Wealth Shock — bears on transition design, since the durability contrast implies a one-off transaction tax cannot substitute for a recurring levy if curbing speculation is the goal.
• Place: Taiwan — a modern macro-financial complement to that page's historical land-value-increment-tax coverage.

See Also

• Taiwan
• Land Value Increment Tax
• Speculative Vacancy
• Mieszkowski: The Property Tax — An Excise Tax or a Profits Tax?

Sources

1. Shiou-Yen Chu (2026), "Property tax incidence and housing market in Taiwan," International Tax and Public Finance, DOI 10.1007/s10797-026-09991-3. doi.org — fetch blocked (Cloudflare "Client Challenge") to both WebFetch and curl this session 2026-08-25; summary drawn from third-party search-result descriptions of the paper. Used for the DSGE model's 2011–2015 Taiwan calibration, the owner-occupier/speculator distinction, and the recurring-tax-durable-vs-transfer-tax-transient central finding (C-claim; [VERIFY] against primary source when accessible, no verbatim quotation offered).