“Wealth Taxation and Portfolio Allocation”

Abstract: “Should governments tax different assets at different rates? The answer depends crucially on the cross-elasticities between asset classes, of which few estimates exist. This paper estimates the cross-elasticity between the two main components of household wealth: financial and real estate assets. In 2017, France transformed its wealth tax into a real estate tax, thereby eliminating wealth taxation on financial assets. Using comprehensive linked administrative income and wealth data from France, I study the effect of this unique reform by contrasting the responses of French residents to non-residents, who remained subject to the wealth tax but were unaffected by the reform. Five years after the reform, French taxpayers have reallocated on average 5% of their real estate holdings toward financial assets. These responses translate into a quite modest cross-elasticity: a one percentage point differential increase in the tax rate on real estate causes taxpayers to reallocate 4.7% of their real estate assets to financial assets. This reallocation is driven by reduced ownership in investment properties rather than owner-occupied housing, and coincides with a surge in dividend incomes. Overall, I estimate that behavioral responses account for approximately 7% of the revenue loss due the reform, indicating that the mechanical impact dominates. These findings have two key implications. First, from an equity perspective, exempting financial assets from wealth taxation primarily served as a tax cut for wealthy households in France. Second, the efficiency cost of taxing real estate more heavily than other assets appears limited.”