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The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#211

Post by patrickgzill »

larrys wrote: post #59
pg wrote: post #2

Structurally this practice is a lot like the preindustrial precursor of taxation, when governments would sell monopolies on the import or production of things in exchange for a lump sum. When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister.

"When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister." How might you propose to compensate people who, in good faith, bought taxi medallions (a legal practice)? (Or do you feel that's not necessary?)

Immediate compensation could be to allow "face value plus 5%" of the medallion to be used to pay any local/city taxes, with say 7 or 10 years given to use the credit.

The IRS rules http://www.irs.gov/publications/p535/ch08.html state you have to amortize/depreciate the license over 15 years (180 months). So, any licenses that are 16 or more years old, have already been written off in full, so, a lesser amount would be needed to compensate the owners.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#212

Post by patrickgzill »

philwelch wrote: post #192
enf wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems as disturbing to me as it apparently does to you, but it was recently in the news that the UK actually did a buyout when they abolished slavery. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-colo...

As satisfying as it might seem to just shoot the slaveholding bastards instead, that ends up being even worse in humanitarian terms.

You are aware, that the first slave owner in Virginia, who went to court over his slave, was a black man, right?

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#213

Post by sstrudeau »

The medallion system is certainly far from optimal and a different regulatory regime that allows for innovation while still addressing concerns around impact on traffic (public roads=classic tragedy of the commons case) and passenger safety would be widely welcome. It could certainly improve the customer experience on many axes (quality, availability, timeliness, cost, etc) though I'm skeptical it would do much to improve the lot of the average driver. Taxi driving is a relatively low skill field, so there wouldn't be much incentive for these new ride sharing companies to treat drivers any more fairly than they are currently treated, since drivers will need to work for whichever companies have the largest market share of potential fares.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#214

Post by mech4bg »

roel_v wrote: post #196
mech4bg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have yearly property taxes in Australia, just council rates which are usually around 0.2% of the house valuation (which is much lower than in the US AFAIK). However we don't have the split land/house purchasing like in the UK (or it's not very common at least) - I wonder why?

"However we don't have the split land/house purchasing like in the UK" Of course you do [1], and it's even very common. My cursory Google search shows that in Victory, the state with the most private ownership, 40% of all land is lease hold. Other states even more! The whole city of Canberra is leasehold. That said, it's mostly leases of Crown land, so the economic incentives are a bit different from leasing land fro…

Hey, no fair taking away this part of my comment! "(or it's not very common at least)"

But when you say "40% of all land is lease hold" - are you talking all land now? I was talking about residential housing, and should have made it clearer I was talking about the domain I am used to, i.e. houses in major cities, i.e. in my case Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Having a quick google around and it looks like in rural areas leasehold is more common.

Interesting to learn more about this stuff, thanks for the link.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#215

Post by mech4bg »

tomcorrigan wrote: post #177
mech4bg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have yearly property taxes in Australia, just council rates which are usually around 0.2% of the house valuation (which is much lower than in the US AFAIK). However we don't have the split land/house purchasing like in the UK (or it's not very common at least) - I wonder why?

We most certainly do have yearly property taxes in Australia. Your principal place of residence is exempt. Your holiday house, or your office building is not. That is why residential property is almost entirely freehold not leasehold.

Aha, thanks for the clarification.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#216

Post by tptacek »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #48
DanBC wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they lower fares by not getting insurance and not maintaining their vehicles it's probably a bad thing.

Wouldn't requiring them to carry insurance and maintain their vehicles still be better than government-granted monopolies?

The medallion is what puts teeth on the enforcement of those rules. It's very easy for the owner of a fly-by-night cab company to get new drivers back on the street, perhaps operating under a wholly new LLC with new livery. It's not easy for that owner to get new medallions.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#217

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tptacek wrote: post #216
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't requiring them to carry insurance and maintain their vehicles still be better than government-granted monopolies?

The medallion is what puts teeth on the enforcement of those rules. It's very easy for the owner of a fly-by-night cab company to get new drivers back on the street, perhaps operating under a wholly new LLC with new livery. It's not easy for that owner to get new medallions.

That's just treating the medallion as a deposit. If that's the point then why not use an actual deposit and not artificially limit the number that are issued? Or just treat the cab itself as collateral and seize it for any violation that would have caused forfeiture of a medallion? It may not be worth several hundred thousand dollars, but it's certainly worth enough to have to take it seriously.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#218

Post by philwelch »

patrickgzill wrote: post #212
philwelch wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As satisfying as it might seem to just shoot the slaveholding bastards instead, that ends up being even worse in humanitarian terms.

You are aware, that the first slave owner in Virginia, who went to court over his slave, was a black man, right?

How does that change anything I wrote? White slaveholders held white slaves in ancient Rome but it would have been justified to kill them all as well, too.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#219

Post by meric »

pg wrote: post #2

Structurally this practice is a lot like the preindustrial precursor of taxation, when governments would sell monopolies on the import or production of things in exchange for a lump sum. When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister.

"governments would sell monopolies on the import or production of things in exchange for a lump sum"

Still happens: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/port-leases-garner-5-billion-windf...

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