The Shape of the Tax: Transaction Shifting at New York City's 2019 Transfer-Tax Notches and the Mortgage Recording Tax

New York's 2019 reform introduced seven buyer-paid transfer-tax notches. At the three thresholds with enough sales to study, recorded prices moved below the threshold, compared with sales at the same prices before the reform and with round prices that were never taxed. At USD 2 million prices fell by more than three times the tax saved, but the implied elasticities are small and local. The responses across thresholds reject a proportional benchmark. If the extra sales below each threshold moved there from above it, buyers avoided USD 2–3 million in tax a year. Mortgage amounts also bunch below the recording tax's own USD 500,000 loan notch. Loan records give a benchmark for the gross recording charge and a static costing of replacement schedules. Neither exercise identifies who bears the tax or what the optimal tax would be. Files: the preprint (2.8), the supplemental appendix (unchanged since 2.6), the source archive and a short summary (paper_in_brief.md). The replication package is at 10.5281/zenodo.22880953. See revision_notes.md for earlier changes.