Modern society pursues the welfare state. National welfare is affected by the fact whether tax is allocated equitably. Thus the principle of equitable tax is recognized as one of the important factors for realizing the justice of tax. Where the justic...
Modern society pursues the welfare state. National welfare is affected by the fact whether tax is allocated equitably. Thus the principle of equitable tax is recognized as one of the important factors for realizing the justice of tax. Where the justice of tax is secured, the conflicts between the private's property rights and the public's taxation rights might be mitigated.
The new government, launching in 2003, introduced the Official Notice of House Prices System in 2005. It is to assess and declare the prices of both detached and multiple houses every year. It intends to obtain the reasonable or equitable tax bases for houses, particularly for detached houses. Unlike multiple houses, which characteristics are similar to each other and thus their tax bases are relatively equitable, the characteristics of detached houses are very diverse and thus their tax bases are relatively unclear and unequal to each other.
As of the end of 2005 there were about 4.5 million units of detached houses. In 2005, the government selected 135,000 units or 3% of detached houses and assessed their prices. By using a mass-appraisal program in which detached house prices are calculated automatically according to the changes of price determinant factors, the government assessed the remaining detached houses. The sample sizes were extended to 200,000 units or 4.4% of detached houses in 2006.
This system intends to assess the house prices reasonably and thus obtain the equitable tax bases. It is expected to enhance the justice of tax, both horizontally and vertically. The purpose of the dissertation is to make sure whether the vertical equity of housing tax is improved after introducing the new policy, and to find out, if the vertical equity is not improved as much as expected, what are the major causes for it.
The dissertation is composed of six chapters. After the Introduction, Chapter 2 reviews theories concerning the equity of housing tax of both vertical and horizontal. Then it reviews theories concerning real estate assessment for taxation. Finally it reviews theories concerning testing models including the ratio analysis model, the regression analysis models, and the Spearman rank test model.
Chapter 3 deals with the real estate assessment system. It begins with reviewing the current real estate taxation system. Then it reviews the current assessment system applied to housing taxes, particularly, how to manage the Official Notice of House Prices System. It then examines other countries' assessment system for housing tax; Aian countries including Japan and Taiwan; European countries including Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Spain, England and Swiss; and Australian countries including Australia and New Zealand. Finally it analyzes the policy problems inherent in the Official Notice of House Prices System.
Chapter 4 conducts empirical analysis on the vertical equity of housing tax. The main hypothesis is, since the assessment prices are divergent from the market prices, the vertical equity of housing tax may not be kept.
To conduct empirical research, it collects 1,049 samples of taxed houses in the year of 1987, 1,250 samples in the year of 2005, and 1,249 samples in the year of 2006. Each sample sizes are satisfied within more than 95% of significance level and less than ±5% of confidence interval. The samples are distributed into three neighborhood groups in Seoul; the higher, middle, and lower house prices areas. Two kinds of house prices for each samples are collected; one for assessment prices for taxation, the other for market prices evaluated by certified public appraisers.
To test the vertical equity of housing tax, it utilizes various models as said in Chapter 2, including the ratio or percentage analysis model; the regression analysis models such as the IAAO model(1978), the CHENG model(1974), the KOCHIN & PARKS model(1982) and the BELL model(1984); and the Spearman's standing mutual relations model.
The findings can be summarized as follows; First, property taxations were managed unfairly among all houses, and also among all regions. Second, the unfairness was rather reverse, i.e., the owners holding cheaper houses paid relatively more taxes than those holding more expensive houses.
Third, after introducing the new assessment system, the efficiency of property taxation seems to be improved. The level of tax bases became closer to the market prices. In the year of 1987, the average of assessment rates was only 23% of market prices. After implementing the new system, that reached to 72.6% in the year of 2005 and 67.7% in the year of 2006. In other words, the amount of property taxes on houses increased.
Fourth, the standard deviations of assessment rates grew larger, however. The standard deviations in the year of 1987 was 3.7%. But it became wider to 14.5% in the year of 2005 and to 14.9% in the year of 2006. It may indicate that the unfairness of property tax among housing holders became worsen.
In sum, the new assessment system may be effective in terms of efficiently collecting tax revenues from housing holders. But, it may not be effective in terms of redressing the vertical unfairness among them.
Chapter 5 suggests policy alternatives to tackle the current problems and thus to realize more equitable taxation. The alternatives can be categorized into two groups, i.e., institutional and technical issues of the current assessment system.
To improve the institutional problems, among others, government officials who are in charge of assessing the property value should be more qualified, and thus being able to conduct more accurate assessment. Second, the market price data collected through the house trading report system should be integrated into the process of assessing property values. Third, the sample size of the current assessment system needs to be enlarged in order to assess house prices more accurately. Fourth, the administrative process needs to be more articulated to adjust time gaps between the surveyed date(every January 1) and the noticed date(every June 1).
To improve the assessment techniques, the contents of the calculating tables, which are applied to assess the prices of remaining detached houses by using the information of the sampled houses, need to be more diversified. The survey items also need to be reorganized in order to reflect the various characteristics of detached houses, and thus measuring more accurately the hedonic prices of each houses.
Chapter 6 is a conclusion of the dissertation. It summaries the findings, suggestions to improve the vertical justice of housing tax, and both the contributions and limitations of the dissertation.