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Property taxes going up? The 340B Program might be partly responsible

pricepoints.health

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Re: Property taxes going up? The 340B Program might be partly responsible

#11

Post by jeffbee »

elektronika wrote: post #9
jeffbee wrote: post #2

TL;DR taking properties off the tax roll costs the remaining taxpayers more. Pretty basic stuff. I've been talking this up to local electeds for decades, with very little progress. The only success I've had is ending the local program that makes "historic" properties tax exempt, but the huge whale exemptions for hospitals and whatnot remain.

Universities are just as bad or worse on this front. They will buy up properties with no plan simply because they have the cash to throw around and don't have to pay tax.

People say that in Berkeley but usually the specifics of the deal they are taking about are incorrect, so I generally ignore such people. For example the properties owned by the U.C. wealth fund are taxed like any other.

Re: Property taxes going up? The 340B Program might be partly responsible

#12

Post by kiba »

idiotsecant wrote: post #8
jeffbee wrote: post #2

TL;DR taking properties off the tax roll costs the remaining taxpayers more. Pretty basic stuff. I've been talking this up to local electeds for decades, with very little progress. The only success I've had is ending the local program that makes "historic" properties tax exempt, but the huge whale exemptions for hospitals and whatnot remain.

reducing or removing property taxes for legitimate historic properties seems like a good thing to me. I don't want every community to look like a slightly randomized version of every other community. Historic stuff is interesting. If we can encourage it to stay interesting and not get torn down to build a TGI fridays that sounds like a good thing to me. How much did your crusade to tax local historic structures save…

Then they should be owned by governments outright. Provided that the community consent to it and are aware of the cost.

Government provides crucial services that increases land value, offsetting any losses in tax revenue through public utility. Perhaps the same thing can happen with historical buildings.

However, let us note that cities are for living in. It is not a museum.

Ultimately, only the public can determine the balance of concerns to be struck.

Re: Property taxes going up? The 340B Program might be partly responsible

#13

Post by stephen_cagle »

idiotsecant wrote: post #8
jeffbee wrote: post #2

TL;DR taking properties off the tax roll costs the remaining taxpayers more. Pretty basic stuff. I've been talking this up to local electeds for decades, with very little progress. The only success I've had is ending the local program that makes "historic" properties tax exempt, but the huge whale exemptions for hospitals and whatnot remain.

reducing or removing property taxes for legitimate historic properties seems like a good thing to me. I don't want every community to look like a slightly randomized version of every other community. Historic stuff is interesting. If we can encourage it to stay interesting and not get torn down to build a TGI fridays that sounds like a good thing to me. How much did your crusade to tax local historic structures save…

Strong disagree. If something has value, then the community should decide to preserve it as a group or the state should preserve it for us. I suspect that most of these schemes are some form of tax avoidance for wealthier people. The idea that some politically connected and likely wealthy group of people need some sort of help "preserving" historic buildings seems... dubious.

Re: Property taxes going up? The 340B Program might be partly responsible

#15

Post by jeffbee »

idiotsecant wrote: post #8
jeffbee wrote: post #2

TL;DR taking properties off the tax roll costs the remaining taxpayers more. Pretty basic stuff. I've been talking this up to local electeds for decades, with very little progress. The only success I've had is ending the local program that makes "historic" properties tax exempt, but the huge whale exemptions for hospitals and whatnot remain.

reducing or removing property taxes for legitimate historic properties seems like a good thing to me. I don't want every community to look like a slightly randomized version of every other community. Historic stuff is interesting. If we can encourage it to stay interesting and not get torn down to build a TGI fridays that sounds like a good thing to me. How much did your crusade to tax local historic structures save…

None of the covered properties in Berkeley are legitimate landmarks of genuine architectural merit or historical importance. Every one of them was established by flim-flam for the purpose of claiming the tax abatement. Over the years this lovely property claimed more tax breaks than any other. Judge for yourself whether the public interest was served.

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.8567746,-122.2550107,3a,60y,...

Re: Property taxes going up? The 340B Program might be partly responsible

#16

Post by kiba »

jeffbee wrote: post #6
larsiusprime wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although they key thing here is that it's not just that effect, but emergent unintended consequences. In the article, it describes how non profit healthcare institutions have an incentive to buy for profit clinics, because (alongside the other incentives), when they do so, the real estate becomes tax exempt because now it's owned by a non profit, even if the work being performed stays the same.

That's not "unintended" that is the core of what they call the NPIC, the non-profit industrial complex. They do the same activity, with the same financial outcome, but they do it under a different corporate form and pay no taxes. The public does not benefit. Medical care is not the only player in this game. You also get it with "community land trusts" that take a property off the tax roll but don't lower rents.

The irony of not treating land as a communal resource and letting private actors such as non-profits privatize the gains.

Re: Property taxes going up? The 340B Program might be partly responsible

#17

Post by stephen_cagle »

Really seems to me that there should be no exemption for land tax for non profits or religious reasons. It is just far too subject to abuse, and it means that we have large churches in the middle of incredibly dense cities that pay almost nothing in taxes.

Re: Property taxes going up? The 340B Program might be partly responsible

#18

Post by epistasis »

kiba wrote: post #10
etrautmann wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem clearly aware that this is relevant to a small subset of the population.

Property tax is an emerging issue. There are movement to end property taxes or limit them across the US. There is some opposite momentum toward the land value tax, which is a good thing, but these are less visible and likely weaker than a tax revolt by landowners. Eventually, if the current trend continue for property taxes, we will see a disruption in government funding for basic service, and the contraction of the…

> There is some opposite momentum toward the land value tax, which is a good thing, but these are less visible and likely weaker than a tax revolt by landowners.

You're breaking my heart here. A land value tax is embraced by anti-tax advocates like Milton Friedman as the "least bad tax" as well as by actual Marxists. However, it does seem like in the current moment a land-owner tax revolt is the likeliest end game.

And if there is a big push towards eliminating property tax, those states will rush towards California-like real estate disasters.

I just wish that all the people who had a hard time purchasing a home or paying rent would act on their own self-interest in reducing the share of our economy that flows to the rentierism of the land owner. Rentierism is bad in all economies, yet we have enabled an overclass to exploit young people and the poor. We live in an asset economy, where there's a big class divide between those who must work to survive, and those who own real estate (especially if it's their own home) and those who own financial assets like stocks. Making capitalism work better requires more class mobility and less inequality than we currently have.

Re: Property taxes going up? The 340B Program might be partly responsible

#19

Post by xnx »

stephen_cagle wrote: post #17

Really seems to me that there should be no exemption for land tax for non profits or religious reasons. It is just far too subject to abuse, and it means that we have large churches in the middle of incredibly dense cities that pay almost nothing in taxes.

Yes. And then after many years, the appreciated land is sold for a profit.
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