Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Georgism

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 338 posts

Re: Georgism

#181

Post by neilparikh »

Mirioron wrote: post #177
pydry wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>LVT would not be an appropriate method for targeting tax extraction from extremely wealthy landlords. They would (probably) make up their losses through rent increases and additional service charges Seriously?? If your inquiry concluded this then it certainly was being run on behalf of landlords. They would no more be able to make up their losses through rent increases than I could make up the loss of being charged…

> When the supply of housing remains constant and the demand of housing remains constant then prices remain constant. LVT changes none of these variables directly. Doesn't LVT increase the cost of providing the already existing housing and wouldn't that decrease the supply of housing? This would apply one time when the LVT comes into effect.

No, LVT adds no cost to providing housing. All land is taxed, so a landowner has to pay the same tax whether the land is empty, or has a single floor house, or a 30 story apartment.

If anything, it encourages building more, so that the income from the rent can be used to the pay the LVT.

Re: Georgism

#182

Post by Mirioron »

jrs235 wrote: post #154
free_rms wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's all on the assessor to decide the 'proper' unimproved land values to raise enough revenue while not driving the wrong people out of business? At a national scale? On that note, is the inherent land value of a lot in Bushwick way higher then 20 years ago now that they've gentrified? Is neighborhood desirability an 'unimproved' attribute? I very much get where you guys are coming from in a philosophical sense,…

>On that note, is the inherent land value of a lot in Bushwick way higher then 20 years ago now that they've gentrified? Is neighborhood desirability an 'unimproved' attribute? Yes. Desirability and infrastructure near land increases it's unimproved value.

So if I want my tax bill to be cheap I should be against everything that the government does that would improve life around my home? Won't this take NIMBYism to a whole new level?

Re: Georgism

#184

Post by snidane »

neilparikh wrote: post #178
rikroots wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Inquiry didn't kill LVT, and efforts to promote it haven't stopped just because Lyons didn't recommend it as a solution going forward. > ... extremely wealthy landlords ... killing LVT LVT would not be an appropriate method for targeting tax extraction from extremely wealthy landlords. They would (probably) make up their losses through rent increases and additional service charges - effectively passing on the tax…

> They would (probably) make up their losses through rent increases and additional service charges - effectively passing on the tax to renters and leaseholders. Since no land can be created or destroyed, the supply-demand curve is fixed. This means that the land tax cannot be passed onto the renter, because the market conditions haven't changed. The rent is not calculated based on the landlord's costs plus some extra…

> Another way to think about it: if landlords have the market power to raise rents, why wouldn't they just do it now, rather than wait until an LVT is passed?

Exactly. Because they hold monopoly pricing power over tenants they could in theory increase the rents 10 times even today. They don't do that, because better strategy for a parasite is to maximize profit and not to kill the host.

Re: Georgism

#185

Post by balfirevic »

crazygringo wrote: post #176
JSavageOne wrote: post #17

I've yet to see a single valid objection as to why LVT (Land Value Tax) should not be the primary tax, yet it's nowhere to be found in the political dialogue. Such a shame that the majority of the tax burden instead falls on the working class while the landowners get a free ride.

I mean... the objection is that it's incredibly arbitrary, greatly affecting one part of the economy and leaving others untouched. Why not a radio spectrum tax as the primary tax instead? Or an oxygen tax proportional to your lung size? Or a clean water tax, or a tax on the weight of your grocery consumption, or a tax on the weight of the garbage you produce, or the carbon you consume? All of those are valuable resou…

Land value tax is considered among the economists as being one of the least distortionary taxes.

Re: Georgism

#186

Post by LVTfan »

crazygringo wrote: post #176
JSavageOne wrote: post #17

I've yet to see a single valid objection as to why LVT (Land Value Tax) should not be the primary tax, yet it's nowhere to be found in the political dialogue. Such a shame that the majority of the tax burden instead falls on the working class while the landowners get a free ride.

I mean... the objection is that it's incredibly arbitrary, greatly affecting one part of the economy and leaving others untouched. Why not a radio spectrum tax as the primary tax instead? Or an oxygen tax proportional to your lung size? Or a clean water tax, or a tax on the weight of your grocery consumption, or a tax on the weight of the garbage you produce, or the carbon you consume? All of those are valuable resou…

The radio spectrum -- those airwaves we say belong to the American people -- should be treated as our common treasure, not purchaseable by corporations. Lease them out for, say, 5 years or 10 years, and then put them up for bids again.

We all need clean air. We all need clean water. Those who use lots of water are usually charged by their local utility for what they take. Some farms and water bottlers deplete the local resource, and they ought to be charged for what they take from the commons, if the carrying capacity can't handle it.

Supermarkets in Manhattan are amazingly inventive in providing a lot of groceries in a space whose smallness would be unimaginable in suburbia -- and is difficult to "social distance" in today.

In the city, that supermarket woudl not be a single-story building; it would have a 20- or 40- or more story building overhead, and all those users would share the land value tax.

And the building would not be taxed, so no downside to fully developing, and regularly redeveloping, the lot to serve human needs.

Re: Georgism

#187

Post by LVTfan »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #170
JSavageOne wrote: post #17

I've yet to see a single valid objection as to why LVT (Land Value Tax) should not be the primary tax, yet it's nowhere to be found in the political dialogue. Such a shame that the majority of the tax burden instead falls on the working class while the landowners get a free ride.

And I have yet to see a single valid reason as to why LTV should be the primary tax. I've seen a lot of words, but they all seem to start by assuming that LTV would be fair and the current system is not. That forms a very poor basis for convincing people who don't already agree. Here's my argument against LTV: Warren Buffet owns one modest house in Omaha. Should he be taxed based on the land value of that modest hous…

Most of his stock holdings occupy land in very valuable places, and aren't paying much in property tax.

The principle is to pay for what you take, not for what you make. His modest home, likely on a modest lot, in a not-huge city, is worth little.

For a while, he had a couple of places in Malibu, and he told the WSJ what he thought of Proposition 13, keeping the taxes ridiculously low. Arnold Schwarznegger told him to go do pushups. Buffett saw the injustice.

Re: Georgism

#188

Post by snidane »

rikroots wrote: post #167
pydry wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>LVT would not be an appropriate method for targeting tax extraction from extremely wealthy landlords. They would (probably) make up their losses through rent increases and additional service charges Seriously?? If your inquiry concluded this then it certainly was being run on behalf of landlords. They would no more be able to make up their losses through rent increases than I could make up the loss of being charged…

> They would no more be able to make up their losses through rent increases than I could make up the loss of being charged extra for a loaf of bread at the supermarket by unilaterally raising my wages. One does not drive the other. Do you have research, or an evidence base, for this? > [...] it certainly was being run on behalf of landlords. It certainly was not.

It might have not been directly funded by landlords but it might have been approved for publishing with the same motives as opposed to the other studies which came to opposite conclusions.

Re: Georgism

#189

Post by neilparikh »

crazygringo wrote: post #176
JSavageOne wrote: post #17

I've yet to see a single valid objection as to why LVT (Land Value Tax) should not be the primary tax, yet it's nowhere to be found in the political dialogue. Such a shame that the majority of the tax burden instead falls on the working class while the landowners get a free ride.

I mean... the objection is that it's incredibly arbitrary, greatly affecting one part of the economy and leaving others untouched. Why not a radio spectrum tax as the primary tax instead? Or an oxygen tax proportional to your lung size? Or a clean water tax, or a tax on the weight of your grocery consumption, or a tax on the weight of the garbage you produce, or the carbon you consume? All of those are valuable resou…

LVT is least distortionary tax, because you can't create or destroy land.

> Why should a low-margin supermarket which people need, occupying tons of space, pay huge taxes, while a tiny very profitable ultra-luxury boutique hotel pays only 5% of the taxes?

Because the supermarket is using more land compared to the hotel. Every bit of land the supermarket owns is land you and I can't use. It's only fair that the supermarket compensate the community for this, since the land could have been used for something else instead (like an apartment building, or an office building).

It's also not a given that the ultra-luxury hotel will pay less tax. It's likely that a luxury hotel will be in a more desirable area of town, where land values are higher, and so tax there will be higher.

Re: Georgism

#190

Post by LVTfan »

LVTfan wrote: post #36
CydeWeys wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What tax should tech companies pay then, given that the only land they really need is cheap rural land for data centers? This taxation system does make sense for land, but there's way more economic activity happening that isn't associated with land than there is that is.

They generally locate where they can draw on a pool of talented people, and those people are drawn by social amenities, good schools, good infrastructure. All those things contribute to land value.

And those who are late to the game and buy a piece of land comparable to their entrenched competitor who bought years ago are paying multiples of the property tax.

Those late to the game who decide to rent are paying rents based on current land values, but their landlords, who may have owned the property for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, are paying to the community based on their purchase price. It becomes a form of sharecropping. Landlording can be very profitable, especially in California, if you own or inherit property from someone who bought it decades ago. Cui bono?

Post reply on HN