ABSTRACT
In discussing the tax bases for an income or for an expenditure tax in the preceding chapters of our Report we postponed discussion of the tax treatment of dwelling houses for special treatment in a separate chapter. The market for dwelling houses is so distorted by various governmental interventions and regulations (including special tax provisions) that any changes in the tax treatment of housing present peculiar difficulties, which we attempt to outline in this chapter. There are, as we shall argue, a number of different approaches to this problem, the choice between which should not be allowed to affect the main thrust of the rest of our discussion of the choice between an income tax base and an expenditure tax base for other sectors of the economy.
