Why a land-value tax is inevitable • Hacker News Board

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#21

Post by paconbork » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

kevinpet wrote: post #13

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #3

> 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.

Charming bakery with five stories of apartments above it > charming bakery by itself

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#22

Post by fortran77 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:08 PM UTC

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #4

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #3

> 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…

Governments do, indeed, spend significantly more than they used to. The problem in the Bay Area is simply that taxable value assessed only at sale.

That's not true. Every year it can be raised 2%.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#23

Post by GavinMcG » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:08 PM UTC

shaggyfrog wrote: post #12

I 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.

So would I, but that really doesn't have anything to do with the article. Let's judge it on its own merits.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#24

Post by Ericson2314 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

seanalltogether wrote: post #5

LVT 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…

The idea is that once the denser buildings, the value of land from the city centers will also decrease far more rapidly.

There is a temporary transition period when shit is weird because we don't have the density/land value gradient to make farming not suffer. The best thing to do is re-plan where the density ought to be to come up with

> pre_plan(x, y) * current_value(x, y)

But I'm not sure how to do this in a way that isn't a political clusterfuck.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#25

Post by nathanvanfleet » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

> 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.

This sounds regressive. So someone with a bungalow on their property pays the same tax as someone with a 40 story apartment building?

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#26

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

GavinMcG wrote: post #23

shaggyfrog wrote: post #12

I 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.

So would I, but that really doesn't have anything to do with the article. Let's judge it on its own merits.

[deleted]

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#27

Post by Apocryphon » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

shaggyfrog wrote: post #12

I 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.

Upon skimming, that article appears to be general radical leftist criticism of big government past propaganda campaigns about the Iraq War and bank bailouts, and ends up calling for UBI in the form of a Citizen Dividend. Other than the anti-establishment framing, it seems to be relatively weak tea criticism, it doesn’t claim that COVID is a hoax nor engages in anti-vaxx/anti-5G woo, it just puts out a narrative that “the government has lied before, it’ll lie again!”

Progress.org appears to be a Democracy Now! type publication that accepts content from different grassroots progressive viewpoints, some fringier than others.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#28

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

GavinMcG wrote: post #23

shaggyfrog wrote: post #12

I 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.

So would I, but that really doesn't have anything to do with the article. Let's judge it on its own merits.

How do you judge an article by its merits when it involves something complex that you don’t already fully understand? I don’t have the time or desire to become an expert in tax policy, so I have to use some other signal to measure the merits of this article. At some point, that signal will come down to reputation of SOMEBODY or SOMETHING, and looking at the other articles posted by this site is a good starting point.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#29

Post by DeonPenny » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #11

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.

We went from riding horses to computer and space ship so I don't know if those will have the same impact capitalism has especially if we have less money for innovation

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#30

Post by lostapathy » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:12 PM UTC

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #25

> 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. This sounds regressive. So someone with a bungalow on their property pays the same tax as someone with a 40 story apartment building?

If they're next to each other, yes.

If the bungalow is out in the suburbs and the apartment building is downtown next to the transit station, the apartment will pay MUCH more tax as that land is much more valuable.