1. UBI
2. LVT
3. Environmental externality taxes
That's all we need to fix the 21st century. Simple as hell so basically immune to regulatory capture, and will usher in a rate of progress we haven't seen in 100 years, if ever.
Why a land-value tax is inevitable
11–20 of 322 posts
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#12I would much rather read an article about land value tax from a site that doesn't also have an article suggesting COVID-19 is a hoax.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#13> At the top of an economic cycle, governments are collecting their peak tax revenues — yet even so, many are still running large fiscal deficits and have large existing public debts. They’re also spending more than they ever have before in history. > The LVT is not the same as a property tax, as it does not punish those who put the land to use; it taxes only the land, not the structure built on top of it. I’m not co…
A charming bakery in a now expensive part of town is in fact an economic inefficiency. You can argue against it on non-economic grounds, but living in a luxury apartment is a good that people consume, just like madeleines.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#14LVT has to be mixed with an occupancy tax however. If I own a large field capable of supporting 10 homes right in the middle of the suburbs, I shouldn't be paying the equivalent taxes that 10 households should be paying. You have to separate out the taxes used to pay for services like trash from the taxes meant for ownership of the land. (although you could argue that large parts of the government are needed to servi…
> If I own a large field capable of supporting 10 homes right in the middle of the suburbs, I shouldn't be paying the equivalent taxes that 10 households should be paying.
Yes you should, that's literally the entire point of an LVT. If you can generate enough productive economic activity on the land to equal/surpass that of ten households, then the tax is no problem, otherwise you should sell it so the houses can use it better.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#15> At the top of an economic cycle, governments are collecting their peak tax revenues — yet even so, many are still running large fiscal deficits and have large existing public debts. They’re also spending more than they ever have before in history. > The LVT is not the same as a property tax, as it does not punish those who put the land to use; it taxes only the land, not the structure built on top of it. I’m not co…
It's not too different to what's happening now in low density neighborhoods because single-family houses are not an efficient use of million-dollar lots. In the current system, an empty lot is taxed less than a house, which is taxed less than say a small apartment building. IMO this is completely backwards: the tax code should reward productive usage of limited resources.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#16I’m struggling to envision how this would impact homeowners differently than the current property tax paradigm. If I have a house and the value of the property goes up, my property taxes increase. If I were to sell a house at market rate, theoretically it would be reflective of what rate it was being taxed at.
How would this same situation play out with a land-value tax?
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#17LVT has to be mixed with an occupancy tax however. If I own a large field capable of supporting 10 homes right in the middle of the suburbs, I shouldn't be paying the equivalent taxes that 10 households should be paying. You have to separate out the taxes used to pay for services like trash from the taxes meant for ownership of the land. (although you could argue that large parts of the government are needed to servi…
Not to endorse a particular point of view, but I believe land value taxes are based on assessed land value. If you're saying that your hypothetical land shouldn't pay the tax the neighboring 10 homes are paying, I think the economist would say something like that clearly isn't the most productive use of the land and you should build on it, I guess. Again, not an endorsement, just my view of the argument.
Also I think "occupancy taxes" as referred to by policy people means a tax on unoccupied land/homes (e.g. pied a terre laws). But I could be mistaken.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#18Land-value tax doesn't have huge inefficiencies like some other taxes. But the hard part is assessing "value". How should land value be decided? The book "Radical Markets" has some good insights on how to find the value of every plot of land by using markets.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#19I think an LVT only works if property tax is removed. And getting every state to have less taxes will be rough.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#20LVT has to be mixed with an occupancy tax however. If I own a large field capable of supporting 10 homes right in the middle of the suburbs, I shouldn't be paying the equivalent taxes that 10 households should be paying. You have to separate out the taxes used to pay for services like trash from the taxes meant for ownership of the land. (although you could argue that large parts of the government are needed to servi…
> I shouldn't be paying the equivalent taxes that 10 households should be paying
Why not? You may not be making use of the services because of your inefficient use of land, but you do benefit from those services being available in the form of higher land value.