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Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

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Re: Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

#21

Post by bobthepanda »

stevenalowe wrote: post #17
geocon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, land and property taxes are not the same- the notable difference being that property taxes penalize building/remodeling/additional construction and so forth. A big part of addressing NIMBYism is to remove the economic incentives for it, a lot of which is attempting to profit off of increasing land values, which is much harder with an LVT- so shifting the way that people think about housing, away from investment…

The NIMBYism I've noticed - a small subset, to be sure - would not be affected by any tax. People don't want mass housing, prisons, or industries in their neighborhood because of the increased risks (traffic, crime, pollution, etc.) and inconvenience, not just the effects on property values. Adding another tax solves nothing.

Part of how LVT "solves" this is that if you really don't want to develop your property to the point that the market thinks it can handle, you have to put your money where your mouth is to enforce NIMBYism, since the land tax of developing vs not developing would be the same.

Re: Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

#22

Post by Hellbanevil »

larsiusprime wrote: post #6
stevenalowe wrote: post #5

Land and property improvements are already taxed (at least everywhere I’ve lived in the USA); I see no logical cause and effect relationships between the additional tax proposal and the alleged problems (nimby-ism) it is supposed to address.

Here's some empirical research for you then: http://gameofrent.com/content/is-land-a-big-deal Additionally, property tax rates vary massively from state to state and there's pretty strong correlation between property tax rates and housing supply and housing affordability. The legacy of California's Proposition 13 and its effects on housing supply are very well studied. Property tax still has inefficiencies (it can pu…

No post body was provided.

Re: Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

#23

Post by spywaregorilla »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #20
spywaregorilla wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land value tax is, in a sense, punishing people for not being productive. So there's that.

It's punishing people for being not productive in a very specific, narrow sense--productivity per unit land. Moreover (for clarity's sake), the parent said "stop punishing people for being productive" not "start punishing people for being unproductive" which sound similar but are very different statements.

shrug. rent seeking landowners are the greatest threat to a healthy economy.

Re: Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

#24

Post by hash872 »

A very high LVT is a politically unserious proposition, because it would involve drastically raising taxes on the people who actually vote & hold political power in society- the middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy in suburbs and low-density urban areas. All of the alleged 'efficiency' gains you hear Georgists claim really mean 'middle class homeowners forced to sell their single family home to developers due to crushing tax increases'. Every day the evening news and social media would carry a new, tearful story of a family forced to sell their home. The white-hot rage of millions of taxpayers whose taxes drastically rise overnight would be enough to create bottled fusion- I suppose it would be good for the US in that you could finally find an issue that unites the most leftward Democrat and the most rightward Republican.

'Forcing everyone in the suburbs to sell their home to an apartment building developer due to ruinously high taxes' is the single most politically unrealistic idea ever proposed. LVT is certainly a clever way to make sure land is used efficiently, and probably a good idea in the abstract, and perhaps we could enact it when we colonize Mars. But implementing it on a country where many of the voters are living in 'inefficient' SFHs now is not ever going to happen

Re: Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

#25

Post by uberman »

bitshiftfaced wrote: post #19
uberman wrote: post #13

I guess I am skeptical that LVT would do anything for most of non-dense urban America. I would be happy to swap out my property, school, state, and income taxes for one where I paid what it would cost to lease the land I currently own. It would reduce my tax burden by 99% I know because my neighbor leases a large parcel (several times my lot size) from the federal government. I would be delighted to swap my current p…

The nominal value of each parcel of land doesn't matter when calculating a landowner's tax burden. You just need to compare each piece of land relative to one another and scale the tax burden accordingly.

That is how traditional property tax works. However (as I understand it) a LVT that replaces property tax (potentially all other taxes as the one true tax) is based solely on the yearly cost to lease a parcel of land. Your tax is just that, the cost to lease.

With a LVT there is no "here is your % of the district tax burden apportioned by what you own" only a "here is what we estimate it would cost to lease this property for a year".

Re: Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

#26

Post by vore »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #20
spywaregorilla wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land value tax is, in a sense, punishing people for not being productive. So there's that.

It's punishing people for being not productive in a very specific, narrow sense--productivity per unit land. Moreover (for clarity's sake), the parent said "stop punishing people for being productive" not "start punishing people for being unproductive" which sound similar but are very different statements.

I don't think this adds any value to the interpretation of the parent's comment and seems overly pedantic. What does your hair-splitting provide when the central thesis of the parent is arguing that land value tax is a tax on productivity when you've even conceded the rebuttal?

Re: Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

#27

Post by Wowfunhappy »

hash872 wrote: post #24

A very high LVT is a politically unserious proposition, because it would involve drastically raising taxes on the people who actually vote & hold political power in society- the middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy in suburbs and low-density urban areas. All of the alleged 'efficiency' gains you hear Georgists claim really mean 'middle class homeowners forced to sell their single family home to developers du…

Could you start small? Just a minor LVT to begin with, which could potentially be raised over time. Possibly implemented by a single city instead of nationwide.

Re: Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

#28

Post by gruez »

hash872 wrote: post #24

A very high LVT is a politically unserious proposition, because it would involve drastically raising taxes on the people who actually vote & hold political power in society- the middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy in suburbs and low-density urban areas. All of the alleged 'efficiency' gains you hear Georgists claim really mean 'middle class homeowners forced to sell their single family home to developers du…

>All of the alleged 'efficiency' gains you hear Georgists claim really mean 'middle class homeowners forced to sell their single family home to developers due to crushing tax increases'. Every day the evening news and social media would carry a new, tearful story of a family forced to sell their home.

This seems trivially fixable by making the tax revenue neutral (ie. every additional dollar collected by the LVT is counterbalanced by one less dollar in taxes collected elsewhere).

Re: Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy

#30

Post by Retric »

hash872 wrote: post #24

A very high LVT is a politically unserious proposition, because it would involve drastically raising taxes on the people who actually vote & hold political power in society- the middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy in suburbs and low-density urban areas. All of the alleged 'efficiency' gains you hear Georgists claim really mean 'middle class homeowners forced to sell their single family home to developers du…

High but realistic LVT at say 2% wouldn’t force people to sell, it would however tank the value of ultra expensive land.

Fewer people could afford 2% of land value + mortgage costs + insurance + … at current prices which means there are fewer buyers at those prices. That price drop scales with the LVT so at 10% you would pay more than at 2%, just nowhere close to 5x as much.

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