Journal of Economic Modeling Research

Speculative demand in the land and housing market has a fundamental role in raising the price of land and housing and causing a diversion and invasion of the housing sector with the aim of profit. The government, by imposing a tax on rent of land and housing return, seeks to control speculation, allocate the land resources and urban housing and make money to build the urban infrastructure. In this study, optimal taxation on the return of housing capital is analyzed in the framework of a dynamic optimization model in Iran. Then, the calibration and sensitivity analysis of the macro variables was done to change the tax rate on housing capital return. Finally, using the GAMS software, the optimal path of macro variables was simulated in different scenarios during the period (2016-2040). In steady state, the results of the sensitivity analysis of macro variables indicate that by increasing the tax rate on the return of housing capital from zero to 25%, and decreasing the tax rate on the return of business capital from 25% to zero, increased the level of business capital per capita, production per capita and consumption per capita by 50.62%, 13.47% and 25.27% respectively, and decreased the level of housing capital per capita by 31.5%. Also, the results of the simulation indicate that the imposing tax on the return of housing capital at a rate of 4% compared to the current state of the economy, has led to upward the optimal path of business capital per capita, production per capita and business capital per capita and gone down housing capital in the long run during the transition period.