[calmoo]

How much fraud we talking? I like to think along Matt Levine's ideas that at least some amount of fraud is acceptable - there will always be some amount of it and under or over-regulation creates a net-negative.

[CGMthrowaway]

Tough to measure. A couple data points:

-NY state estimate $150–200M per year lost to real estate transfer tax fraud and evasion. On $3B receipts that is 5-6% breakage.

-Harris County (Houston) found $21M in improper homestead exemptions. On ~$7B receipts that is ~0.3% breakage

-Miami-Dade found $35M on $6.5B for improper homestead exemptions, 0.5% breakage

For comparison, IRS net tax gap is about 12%

[PopAlongKid]

One would expect transfer tax fraud/evasion to be an order of magnitude different from improper homestead exemptions.