Richard W. England (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge, MA) & Min Qiang Zhao (Ohio State University, Department of Economics) have published Assessing the Distributive Impact of a Revenue–Neutral Shift from a Uniform Property Tax to a Two-Rate Property Tax with a Uniform Credit, 58 National Tax Journal 247-60 (June 2005). Here is the abstract:
A number of economists have argued that a property tax with a lower rate applied to improvement values than to land values is superior to a property tax with a uniform tax rate that yields the same total revenue. This paper explores the statutory incidence of shifting to two–rate property taxation from single–rate property taxation. The authors recommend a tax credit provision to mitigate the regressive tendencies of this type of tax reform.



