This paper studies the effects of Finnish first-time homebuyer’s transfer tax exemption on the propensity to become a first-time home buyer. Under certain conditions a first-time buyer may be exempted from a transfer tax rate of 2% or 4% depending on the dwelling type. Using administrative data on housing company shareholdings, property taxes, and Finnish population, I exploit a discontinuity in the eligibility rules at an age threshold. My RD estimates suggest that the tax exemption may increase first-time housing company dwelling purchases by 16\% or more at age 40.

Using household survey data for South Korea, we examine heterogeneous impacts of recurrent property taxes on consumer spending. To identify unexpected changes in these taxes, we exploit the unique feature of the South Korean recurrent tax system. Specifically, while the government re-assesses the value of individual houses annually, their assessed value, which constitutes the tax base, deviates from the market value non-systematically, so that every year there is an element of surprise to individual house owners in the amount of recurrent taxes payable. Our main results are threefold. First, an increase in recurrent taxes reduces consumption of households with low liquid asset balances relative to disposable income in particular. Second, higher taxes reduce those households' spending on durable goods more than non-durables. Third, higher taxes lower the probability of multi-house owners buying an additional house for investment, helping curb excessive house price growth.

Beginning in 2018, the amount of state and local tax (SALT) that can be claimed as an itemized deduction is capped at $10,000. Previously, there was no cap on this deduction. The cap is expected to reduce the share of taxpayers who itemize deductions, and to raise the net-of-tax price of charitable giving. This effect is not uniform across geographic areas. In locations with initially low state and local taxes, the cap is not binding for many. This paper makes use of geographic variation to investigate whether the introduction of the SALT cap is associated with a reduction in gifts made to charitable organizations. Analysis of household-level data suggests that high-SALT households reduced their giving relative to low-SALT households. Analysis of organization-level data from IRS Form 990 suggests that charitable organizations located in counties with initially high SALT deductions experienced a relative decline in contributions after the tax change.

We take advantage of a unique experiment to study how saving responds to wealth shocks. Following the collapse of Iceland's banking system in 2008, authorities decided on a program of mortgage relief, financed by foreign creditors, that in effect lowered the principal of mortgages overnight in 2015, many years after the end of the economic crisis when household balance sheets had been repaired. Using administrative data on all taxpayers in the country, we measure the effect of the mortgage relief on the saving of every taxpayer in the country using households that were not eligible for debt relief as a control group. Although a negative effect of wealth on saving could have been expected, households amortized even more in response to the debt forgiveness. The increased amortization is not only due to lower interest costs, but also due to higher saving, mostly by highly leveraged and liquidity constrained households.