Nudging Away Disparities in Homestead Exemption Take-up Rates

• In Event: Property Tax Assessments & House Prices

Abstract

Research on racial disparities in property tax bills tends to focus on the assessment process (Berry, 2021; Avenancio-Leon & Howard, 2022), but differential take-up of tax relief programs, such as the homestead exemption, can be equally consequential for these disparities (Ihlanfeldt & Rodgers, 2025). We perform a field experiment in Florida to study why eligible homeowners do not claim the homestead exemption despite its substantial tax savings. We mailed 12,000 letters to exemption-eligible homeowners divided into two treatment arms designed to test for informational versus behavioral explanations. Our unique data include not only homeowner race/ethnicity but also gender, making heterogeneity analysis possible. The experiment is complete and we are now awaiting the Florida Department of Revenue's release of the updated tax records. Preliminary results should be available in August.

Authors

• Luke Rodgers, Florida State University

• Alannah Shute, North Carolina General Assembly