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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

#121

Post by fleddr »

I find it disappointing that solutions to the housing problem are so stuck in 20th century thinking. It has this "one more lane of highway" vibe.

Extra supply in already dense/popular areas is fighting symptoms, an uphill battle that will always lag behind actual relief. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try that, I'm just saying to include a wider framework of ideas.

For example, can we rethink how and where we work and how we commute to it? I know this is easier said than done, but I find it bizarre that the number one reason for urbanization, work, is just not included into the thinking. At all.

Further, plan for the boomer exit rather than calling them names. In my country, the Netherlands, many boomers would love to scale down in housing. But those units don't exist. Up to the 90s, we'd have communal living for the elderly where they have small private housing with shared facilities and care, but now most of this is gone.

So they have nowhere to go. You can call them names, tax them (whilst most have no liquid income), none of this is a solution. I'm not saying to pity them, I'm saying a rational and intelligent plan needs to include them whether you like it or not.

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

#122

Post by dwater »

hash872 wrote: post #94
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…

Like here, just to make the point, here is a quote I saved from a Scott Alexander Substack discussion of Georgism. I liked this so much I saved it in Notion, sorry I don't have the commenter's name. If you read a lot of Georgism stuff, you'll notice that they call literally everything 'speculation'- if you want to, you know, live in your home, that's greedy 'speculation' that an LVT will stamp out: "A greedy land spe…

That's a strawman. The difference in the taxes paid by a middle class homeowner under standard property tax schemes and LVT is much less than the difference in taxes paid by the parking lot owner. In practice LVT is usually set up so that a typical single family home owner pays about the same amount under either scheme. The person who will pay a significantly higher rate under LVT is the parking lot owner, who has a much less emotional argument for retaining their property, and at the expense of that one rentier the entire community benefits from encouraging more productive use of that land.

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

#123

Post by Wowfunhappy »

SllX wrote: post #119
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxes should not be conceded as an instrument of power to reorient society into a form viewed by a subset of society as correct Why? If taxes are going to have side effects anyway, I think we should try to make those effects positive instead of negative. > Regardless of reason, taxation is a taking of assets from its owners, and this is a moral compromise we tolerate in service of having a government at all. I don'…

> Why? If taxes are going to have side effects anyway, I think we should try to make those effects positive instead of negative. Simply put: it’s a moral hazard. When the goal of the tax is in service to something other than the cost of government, then the tax rate can be arbitrary, and manipulated to the benefit of those in political favor. That sort of arbitrariness is intolerable in a free and just society as we…

> You are free to disagree, but what is the purpose of the disagreement here?

Because in the case of a carbon tax, the government isn't taking assets that are rightfully yours; they're taking assets that rightfully belong to the public.

Let's say that I bulldoze your house in order to expand the size of my factory. The factory might generate lots of additional revenue, but that revenue would not be rightfully mine.

Now let's say that instead, I dump refuse from my factory into a river that runs through both of our properties. The refuse flows downstream and ruins your drinking water. I would argue that again, the revenue from my factory is not rightfully mine.

That's still pretty obvious. But now let's say that instead of polluting the river, I pollute the air with greenhouse gases. Long-term, this is also going to be detrimental to your property, such as by increasing the likelihood of extreme weather.

And so some portion of the revenue I generate by releasing greenhouse gasses does not actually belong to me. The government should take that revenue, both to allow the free market to correct for those social costs, and to compensate those affected.

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

#124

Post by uberman »

InefficientRed wrote: post #108
uberman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any attempt to solve homelessness should be applauded. However, There are plenty of places in the USA where homes with utilities can be traded for smart phones: https://time.com/3478199/trade-iphone6-for-detroit-house/ There are places where in bulk (sections) you can get land for less than $500 an acre (you would not want to live there admittedly) often land already owned by the state or the fed as you alluded to. G…

That's not a home. It's a piece of land with a structure on it that needs to be demolished before the land can be used for anything. Also, the purchaser is sometimes on the hook for the back taxes (in his case $6K). I'm not sure how MI law works, but if the purchaser is on the hook then he's actually selling a lot with a condemned house for $6,500. Which is not an amazing deal, since vacant land in nicer rust belt ci…

The parent poster spoke of an idea of giving homeless a piece of land not a home. The BLM will sell you 660 acre sections in central Arizona at less than 1000 an acre. Stick 660 homeless on a parcel in rural AZ with no utilities or road access and they will likely all be dead within a week.

My point is that just giving people a bit of land will not solve homelessness at least not the land that is typically managed by the BLM. Not that the streets are not dangerous.

Even rounding up all the homeless in the SF area and sticking them on Alcatraz island would not solve homelessness.

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

#125

Post by hardwaresofton »

InefficientRed wrote: post #101
hardwaresofton wrote: post #91

It doesn't have to be this complicated. We don't need a land value tax. The most straight forward way to make people avoid speculating is to heavily tax all non-primary residence homes. Cap the amount people can charge in rent to some %s of purchase value (incentive to have high purchase value) to and set a baseline on the taxes required and make the math for building property empire bleak (absolute destruction of th…

> Cap the amount people can charge in rent to some %s of purchase value (incentive to have high purchase value) Landlords will figure out how to setup wash sales, or as close to a wash sale as they can legally get, or trade property between entities owned by the same real people, or engage in swapping behavior with other large holders in a cartel-like fashion, etc. Closing all the loop-holes would be difficult. Tax t…

> Landlords will figure out how to setup wash sales, or as close to a wash sale as they can legally get, or trade property between entities owned by the same real people, or engage in swapping behavior with other large holders in a cartel-like fashion, etc. Closing all the loop-holes would be difficult.

Ah thanks for this criticism, the amount of loop holes would be pretty staggering/annoying.

> Tax the net proceeds of rental properties at 90% and slap a 100% capital gains tax on any property that is not owner-occupied. Also, simply rule out renting for huge swathes of property (especially single family homes).

LGTM, ship it.

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

#126

Post by InefficientRed »

toss1 wrote: post #99
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…

We already have some Land Value Tax in many areas, although some of it is inverse to the proposal. By putting a conservation easement on some land, you can preserve it for wildlife and have a minimal tax. >>So it’s kind of just basically a shorthand for I think, being kind of selfish. valuing your property value, your view, your neighborhood character that you want more than building a neighborhood that is welcome fo…

But of course destroying wetlands to build your house was entirely reasonable.

> So, no this proposal is preposterous, aside from being a nonstarter. Young people who might want it are great at making noisy protests and notoriously bad at bothering to vote - the one thing that matters, while older people, and especially those who own property, tend to reliably vote.

In other words, "let them eat cake". The "anyone under 45 doesn't deserve to afford shelter" attitude strikes me as a "fuck around and find out" situation.

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

#127

Post by chrsw »

I'm probably like many other people who live in an expensive city: stuck in the middle income wasteland. Fair market housing is too expensive for me (unless I'm ok with roommates and eating canned beans every day) and I earn too much to qualify for "rent controlled" housing. Honestly, this whole industry feels just like a huge scam and I'm thinking of moving back in with my parents, even though I have a decent tech job. At least, I think it's decent.

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

#128

Post by uberman »

dragonwriter wrote: post #39
uberman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prop…

Note that an LVT of that form is isomorphic to public confiscation of land, which is leased back to the nominal “owner”.

Sure, I guess. There is a lot of fancy words there so I'm not sure I follow what you are saying.

If you are saying that lvt is the amount one would pay if someone else owned the land and you were leasing it then ya.

I would be happy to swap all my taxes for the cost to lease "my property". I cost way more to build my property than it is worth. When we took a year to travel we had to pay someone to live there.

This is not uncommon in rural America and I would be happy to swap this for my taxes.

Just know that doing this would kill most rural schools and defund most rural governments and related safety services including the volenteer ones.

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

#130

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Originami wrote: post #66
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Better to just offer a 10% reduction in LVT per person (including children) living there, if at least one of the people was the owner. A family of four would then have an inherent tax advantage against Blackrock etc. accumulating family housing.

At first blush, my concern would be discriminating against renters vs homeowners.
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