Removing stamp duty is now claimed to miraculously boost homeownership

A new paper finds that removing stamp duty could boost homeownership, ignoring the New Zealand experience where the opposite occurred.

Stamp duty is a state tax on property transactions levied at a few per cent of the value of the trade, with higher rates applying to higher-value trades.

One of the most popular tax reforms in Australia is to remove stamp duty and enact a broader land value tax, which is an annual tax levied on the assessed land value for each property, traded or not. It…