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Tax the Land

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Re: Tax the Land

#161

Post by rnk »

sfblah wrote: post #136
giantg2 wrote: post #13

"The big question land value taxes help answer is: How can a government raise funds without distorting choices and possibly leaving people worse off? If you tax income, it provides a disincentive to work. If you tax property, it provides a disincentive to improve the physical buildings on top of the land." Of course it will distort choices and leave some people worse off. If the author can't see that, then they have…

Income taxes in California + US Federal are high enough that I don't really think it's worth it to try to get my income above, say, $500k a year. So, for me, income taxes absolutely disincentivize work. I actually had a second job for a while and quit it because of this.

Really? Who doesn't want more money? Also, you're not necessarily working that much harder to make a million instead of 500k. Thousands of people who read headline news are making 500k a year in the software industry. The year I made a million dollars, a lot of it in stock from a fang company, I wasn't working twice as hard as the years I made 500k.

Re: Tax the Land

#162

Post by lumost »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #121
giantg2 wrote: post #13

"The big question land value taxes help answer is: How can a government raise funds without distorting choices and possibly leaving people worse off? If you tax income, it provides a disincentive to work. If you tax property, it provides a disincentive to improve the physical buildings on top of the land." Of course it will distort choices and leave some people worse off. If the author can't see that, then they have…

> We already see standard property tax forcing the elderly out of their homes in many areas. It's reasonable to offer options to low-income retirees, for example allowing them to defer property tax payments until death. Texas does this, it works alright. Note that a single family dewlling on .75 acres likely costs the government a lot of money to provide services (plumbing, sewer, electric etc) and is likely already…

The claim that most American towns are going to go broke is a tricky one. The towns became dependent on federal grants raised via income taxes, the towns are not directly capable of raising income tax dollars today. It's possible that the suburban communities are financially viable with income based taxation policies rather than property tax based policies.

Re: Tax the Land

#163

Post by eric4smith »

Vox needs a spanking. (As always).

Just imagine. I have some land. Lots of people would love to buy it it for different things. But for now, I just want to hang onto it until I'm ready to use it. And my house is sitting right next to it.

Yeah, nimby blah, blah blah.

But it's my house and my backyard and my land so... I have to be forced to sell it?

Brah. Just another socialist redistribution scheme.

Re: Tax the Land

#164

Post by teddyh »

The idea of land-value tax strongly reminds me of the often cited, and much maligned, so-called fiduciary duty to shareholders which CEOs and/or board members reportedly have. This duty creates, it is said, an incentive towards naked short-term greed, which is often described as a bad thing. Now, even though this duty is also usually derided as fictional, the argument, if this duty did exist, would be reasonable. But does not a LVT create the same incentives in landowners – in essence forcing landowners to always use the land in a way which extracts the maximum amount of money from it? Why then is a LVT a good thing while the duty thing would be bad (if it did exist)?

Note: I am making an analogy not with what fiduciary duty actually is, but instead with the idea of it which people usually argue against. People usually say that fiduciary duty creates and even enforces thoughtless short-term greed, and argue that is bad for society and also the company in the long run. Regardless of what fiduciary duty actually is in reality, how is then LVT any different from creating the same short-term enforced greed?

A LVT would tax a plot of land by what use it could theoretically be put to in order to make the most money. And this is evaluated individually for each plot of land, with no regard for what would actually happen in reality if every single plot of land would actually be put to use in the most money-making way. Would a LVT not force a monoculture of, say, only lofts, where previously each landowner might have opted to allow things like nightclubs or the occasional park or other forms of variation and whimsy? If you tax every land owner as if they have the maximum possible income, do you not essentially force every landowner to implement that way in order to acquire it?

(Adapted from texts originally written here:)

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25319095

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25324577

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25319594

Re: Tax the Land

#165

Post by uoaei »

giantg2 wrote: post #158
uoaei wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am having trouble finding statistics on the proportion of homeowners in any given country. The available statistics I can find are based on "owner-occupied homes" which is not comparable. What do homeowners want? Well, they don't want higher home prices if no one is around to support the local economy. So clearly they want some level of distribution of access.

Looks like about 86M owner occupied homes out of 141M total housing units. So likely more than half depending on the distribution of household members. "What do homeowners want? Well, they don't want higher home prices if no one is around to support the local economy. So clearly they want some level of distribution of access." I'd imagine that only applies for a small area (SV, NYC). Outside of that area, it's not a…

I mean in a literal sense, hoarding all the goods means no one will be able to produce anything for your consumption. Unless you set up a serfdom, that is.

Re: Tax the Land

#166

Post by rnk »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #77
giantg2 wrote: post #13

"The big question land value taxes help answer is: How can a government raise funds without distorting choices and possibly leaving people worse off? If you tax income, it provides a disincentive to work. If you tax property, it provides a disincentive to improve the physical buildings on top of the land." Of course it will distort choices and leave some people worse off. If the author can't see that, then they have…

> If I have .75 acres with a single family home and 30 years later the area around me is developed, them I will be financially forced off of my land because I could theoretically put an apartment building on it. We already see standard property tax forcing the elderly out of their homes in many areas. This is one of my current issues with land value tax: pricing out existing residents. One mitigation I think that wou…

I guess it's not universal that they don't reduce tax rates for people that are unable to pay, retired elderly? In the Seattle area that's a thing. I want people to be able to pass on their businesses to their kids. But in the US we have this fantasy of inheritance taxes wiping out farm owners. It really only affects giant farms, 11 million is the federal threshold.

I don't think society will be bettered by creating evermore trust fund babies. I'm generally in favor of making it hard to pass on wealth that is so high your offspring's families never have to work. I think one of the major challenges of the US in the future is the accumulation of wealth in smaller group of people over time, and the vast amount of income difference between the masses in the US.

Re: Tax the Land

#167

Post by uoaei »

giantg2 wrote: post #159
uoaei wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally believe it'd be great if people like you could completely divest themselves from nation-states. You don't want to contribute to a commonwealth, that's fine, you can rough it over there and live a sad, cold, hungry existence. The vast majority of the comforts of modern life are afforded specifically and only because other people contribute to the common cause. You reject your responsibility to contribute…

"you can rough it over there" Over where? Organizations (gov, corp, etc) always grow and want more power. There is no place free of it or opt-in only. "Everyone wants to believe they'd be great survivalists." I think this is a gross misconception. I doubt most people want to be survivalist. It's possible they just want less government telling them what to do, especially in their private life. You could have a minarch…

"Less government" still has taxes, so I'm not sure how your comment is connected to the one from the previous commenter.

Re: Tax the Land

#168

Post by brians »

teddyh wrote: post #164

The idea of land-value tax strongly reminds me of the often cited, and much maligned, so-called fiduciary duty to shareholders which CEOs and/or board members reportedly have. This duty creates, it is said, an incentive towards naked short-term greed, which is often described as a bad thing. Now, even though this duty is also usually derided as fictional, the argument, if this duty did exist, would be reasonable. But…

The Georgist land tax taxed the unimproved value of the land. The tax remains the same whatever you build on it.

Sale price already nudges you to preserve, improve, or augment the value of the land.

So I think your concern either already would have happened, or if not, a Georgist land value tax makes it no more likely. Thanks for the opportunity to think this through this far; what am I missing?

Re: Tax the Land

#169

Post by rnk »

RC_ITR wrote: post #118
giantg2 wrote: post #13

"The big question land value taxes help answer is: How can a government raise funds without distorting choices and possibly leaving people worse off? If you tax income, it provides a disincentive to work. If you tax property, it provides a disincentive to improve the physical buildings on top of the land." Of course it will distort choices and leave some people worse off. If the author can't see that, then they have…

>We already see standard property tax forcing the elderly out of their homes in many areas. This was exactly the narrative that led to Prop 13, and what it has led to is the most inflated property market in the entire world because there is nearly no carrying costs for a first (LA), second (Palm Springs), third (Atherton), or fourth (Tahoe) home! Sure, a random subset of boomers can die in their empty 6 bedroom house…

Proposition 13 needs to end. An obvious reason is that property can be owned by a corporation or LLC somehow and you can sell that to someone, effectively selling the house and avoid the proposition 13 tax reset. Proposition 13 has become just yet another way for wealthy people to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Re: Tax the Land

#170

Post by dragonwriter »

rnk wrote: post #169
RC_ITR wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We already see standard property tax forcing the elderly out of their homes in many areas. This was exactly the narrative that led to Prop 13, and what it has led to is the most inflated property market in the entire world because there is nearly no carrying costs for a first (LA), second (Palm Springs), third (Atherton), or fourth (Tahoe) home! Sure, a random subset of boomers can die in their empty 6 bedroom house…

Proposition 13 needs to end. An obvious reason is that property can be owned by a corporation or LLC somehow and you can sell that to someone, effectively selling the house and avoid the proposition 13 tax reset. Proposition 13 has become just yet another way for wealthy people to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

> Proposition 13 has become just yet another way for wealthy people to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

“Has become” implies that was ever not that.

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