> 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?
Why a land-value tax is inevitable
31–40 of 322 posts
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#32> 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
#33> 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?
The land is our collective inheritence, so someone with 1 story bungalow on highly desireable land is actually extremely selfish and decedent in their misuse of the commons.
To get less moral and more mathematical, developers can lessen their tax only to the extent that the flood the market with floors pace, devaluing the good they are selling (floor space, not land space). This forces and equilibrium where the vast majority of people do better than today.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#34LVT 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…
You most certainly should be paying the equivalent of 10 households. You deny 9 others the ability to use the land. If you have real use for the land, paying the lvt won’t be an issue. If you can’t use it efficiently, an lvt will incentivise you to sell what you don’t use.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#35> 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
#36> 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
#37I’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?
So I guess it can't be that way, as it would piss a lot of people off.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#38I’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?
AIUI, they see a few benefits:
- it will ensure someone holding onto empty land for future use will have to pay at the same "rate" as you do. They don't get a discount simply because they choose not to use the land. If you aim to collect the same total amount of revenue, this would lower your tax.
- Use of land would be better optimized if there was no disincentive to build an expensive (eg bigger/denser) building. IMO this is flawed in that local land use rules are the bigger issue compared to tax policy.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#39I’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?
If you completely renovate the house, a property tax would go up but the lvt stays the same.
Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.