The property tax paid by households that own their homes weighs relatively more heavily on the poorest households, shows an INSEE study published on Monday.
The land tax on buildings (including that paid by social landlords and businesses) brought in 29 billion euros to local authorities in 2022.
While the distribution of this tax was until now little known, a new database constructed by INSEE sheds light on this question, notes the study, even if the available data currently dates back to 2017. That year , THE 17 million households subject to property tax paid 19.2 billion euros, i.e. an average amount of 660 euros per accommodation and 1100 euros per taxable household. 42% of households are not subject to property tax because they are not owners.
19.2 billion euros in 2017
It represented on average 0.34% of the gross real estate assets of owner households in 2017. But this apparent rate decreases as the gross real estate assets of households increase: it thus exceeds 0.5% for households with the lowest real estate assets, it is around 0.4% for households between the 60 and 90 percentiles, then it decreases to 0.22% for the 1% of households in the highest real estate assets.
This decline, underlines INSEE, is explained firstly by the fact that households with high real estate assets more frequently own housing whose cadastral rental value is low compared to their market valueeven obsolete, like that of old housing located in the centers of large cities.
In addition, this heritage is often located in cities where property tax rates are lower than elsewhere. In Ile-de-France for example, the apparent tax rate is 0.09% in Paris, 0.16% in the upscale department of Hauts-de-Seine, but 0.42% in Seine-Saint- Denis.
If we relate the property tax to all households, including non-owners, it nevertheless becomes progressive, since the 10% wealthiest households pay 27% of the total and the 10% who have the highest real estate assets in pay 37%.
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