701–710 of 910 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to tax properties, why not taxing both the land and what is build upon it? And wardrobes, tables, books or computers (every year) but that's another story.
So basically own nothing and be happy? What then drives people to create any meaningful value to the economy?
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The idea is that you tax the land only as if it was being used for best use - so that every property is encouraged to develop to maximum density. I suspect that in actual use it would end up having a small to no effect.
In actual use it would, in most cases, ensure that people would not, could not have long-term ownership of land passed down from generation to generation. There would be significant social downstream effects & likely upheaval caused by this, & that would be compounded by the deleterious results of forcing more & more people to live shoulder to shoulder in the name of that maximum density you mention. No system of tax…
Similar arguments would go for rural municipalities that might want to encourage multi-generational agricultural living, for example, if that's what you're getting at.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea is that you tax the land only as if it was being used for best use - so that every property is encouraged to develop to maximum density. I suspect that in actual use it would end up having a small to no effect.
The problem with that is that would displace virtually everyone from many cities in the US. There are plenty of cities with single family housing near the metro area. It was built before the city expanded. Nowadays the city engulfs it. Obviously the best use for most of that is medium density housing or some commercial use. The idea of taxing a house with a backyard like it's a $3 million quad-plex of town homes isn'…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We already tax revenue and/or profits in various ways anyway. If land is in a city, that gives it a high value and revenue earning potential due to no work or expenditure from the land owner, but ongoing costs to the taxpayer to provide the infrastructure and services that give it this value and potential. Roads, schools, hospitals, etc. these are very costly to the public but increase the value of nearby land. The l…
Always wondered how this works on modern times, where income per square foot varies wildly per industry. Let's say because of rising taxes, a bakery or a shop has closed and a lawyers office has opened in that spot. Who exactly us "the public" in this case and what are the "maximum benefits" that they are getting from that change? Because if I actually lived nearby, I sure wouldn't be happy about my favorite vakery/s…
The current property tax system makes it more likely that (in your example) the law firm will push out the bakery. Because improvements are taxed adding more commercial space means paying more taxes, which makes it less likely to happen.
With an LVT, expanding the building (up or out) to add a second store/office is cheaper so you’re more incentivized to provide space for both
Perhaps someone who has thought about this more can explain how a 'land value tax' differs from existing property tax regimes that explicitly examine the value of improvements and the value of land... This Detroit case is interesting because there are different rates of taxation on the land, but the difference in rate could also be obtained by increasing the land component of a parcel's value.
Since other comments already mention Georgism, here's a related piece of trivia: The game Monopoly was originally called The Landlord's Game and meant to demonstrated the issues of land monopolism. It was created by Lizzie Magie, a designer and political activist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Magie Another (somewhat more niche) piece of trivia: (80s-90s) Poland had its own version of Monopoly called Eurobizne…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We already tax revenue and/or profits in various ways anyway. If land is in a city, that gives it a high value and revenue earning potential due to no work or expenditure from the land owner, but ongoing costs to the taxpayer to provide the infrastructure and services that give it this value and potential. Roads, schools, hospitals, etc. these are very costly to the public but increase the value of nearby land. The l…
Always wondered how this works on modern times, where income per square foot varies wildly per industry. Let's say because of rising taxes, a bakery or a shop has closed and a lawyers office has opened in that spot. Who exactly us "the public" in this case and what are the "maximum benefits" that they are getting from that change? Because if I actually lived nearby, I sure wouldn't be happy about my favorite vakery/s…
The important thing isn't that the lawyer's office makes more money. That's just correlated with the important thing, which is that the lawyer's office is willing to pay more rent. Note the lawyer isn't operating a charity for property owners here; they're only going to pay as much for rent as required for the market.
If prevailing rent is high enough such that only lawyers get retail square footage, then clearly property should be taxed as such. That's the value of the land. But then more development will happen, eventually reaching an equilibrium.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We already tax revenue and/or profits in various ways anyway. If land is in a city, that gives it a high value and revenue earning potential due to no work or expenditure from the land owner, but ongoing costs to the taxpayer to provide the infrastructure and services that give it this value and potential. Roads, schools, hospitals, etc. these are very costly to the public but increase the value of nearby land. The l…
Always wondered how this works on modern times, where income per square foot varies wildly per industry. Let's say because of rising taxes, a bakery or a shop has closed and a lawyers office has opened in that spot. Who exactly us "the public" in this case and what are the "maximum benefits" that they are getting from that change? Because if I actually lived nearby, I sure wouldn't be happy about my favorite vakery/s…
Taxes will rise in neighborhoods where improvements have happened. To determine the neighborhood is improving, we need a metric, for instance traffic. We expect the donut shop in an improved neighborhood to see increased traffic and more sales. If traffic doesn't increase then land value hasn't actually increased and the taxes have been applied inappropriately. Maybe we can come up with a better indicating mechanism for land value, I admit I have not read Henry George's work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We already tax revenue and/or profits in various ways anyway. If land is in a city, that gives it a high value and revenue earning potential due to no work or expenditure from the land owner, but ongoing costs to the taxpayer to provide the infrastructure and services that give it this value and potential. Roads, schools, hospitals, etc. these are very costly to the public but increase the value of nearby land. The l…
Always wondered how this works on modern times, where income per square foot varies wildly per industry. Let's say because of rising taxes, a bakery or a shop has closed and a lawyers office has opened in that spot. Who exactly us "the public" in this case and what are the "maximum benefits" that they are getting from that change? Because if I actually lived nearby, I sure wouldn't be happy about my favorite vakery/s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is, what if it doesn't produce that much? What if it doesn't produce anything? Imagine someone buying a house somewhere cheap. Then some gentrification, a new microsoft campus built nearby, etc., and the price of the house jumps 10x+. You're on a fixed income, and your taxes are now higher then you can afford. If you have multiple houses, sure, tax the second, third, etc. one (evn though the taxes are the…
The 10x seems very unrealistic. But assuming that were the case, the taxes would be the least of your worries because things like supermarkets, electricity, phone, water, heating... would also go up heavily. The more realistic picture is that grandma living alone in a rather large, old house, whose price, heating etc. went up quite drastically. That is already happening, in particular the heating part. Just have a lo…