is this on top of property taxes?

What's the rationale?

Landlords have to pay income tax on the rent. If owner-occupiers didn’t pay tax on the imputed rent, then the owner-occupier would pay a lower income tax than the landlord+renter. In effect, the implicit tax deduction that owner-occupiers get on imputed rent in US Income Taxes is a regressive tax on the renter+landlord. See also this explanation: https://www.vox.com/2016/4/15/11432676/imputed-rent-taxation

thanks for this.

At first blush, this sort of tax would seem to disincentivize home ownership but all countries listed on the article apart from Switzerland have higher rates than the UK/US.

Curiously, article doesn't mention Denmark, which does have slightly lower rates than UK/US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...