Georgism • Hacker News Board

Re: Georgism

#111

Post by free_rms » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:33 PM UTC

MiroF wrote: post #104

free_rms wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the arithmetic for this tax scheme doesn't seem to remotely work out, ruminations on the nature of infinity aren't going to set me at ease with it. Here in the finite world, most of the money moving around is in services, while most of the land is disconnected from that economy. How are you getting 1-2 trillion in tax revenue from land without making, say, farming economically unviable? Will it just be riddled thr…

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r... It does not seem at all clear to me that most economic activity is in services and not in resources/monopoly ownership. > farming economically unviable Farming is already unviable, that's why we subsidize it so heavily.

If you filter that list to US companies, it does seem to be mostly in services, with logistics and manufacturing coming up next.

I'm fine with taxing the hell out of Exxon, btw, or at least not giving them cash-in-a-briefcase subsidies, but you're not going to replace the income tax on that.

We collected 3.46 trillion in income taxes last year. How do you get there on a land-value tax? Do we weight it so Manhattan land owners are paying more in tax than the entire midwest?

Re: Georgism

#112

Post by NumberWangMan » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:35 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #74

NumberWangMan wrote: post #67

A lot of people focus on the fairness of the Land Value Tax, but the consequences of using one are just as interesting if not more. This tax has been put into practice in some cities in Pennsylvania, and there's evidence that it has a whole bunch of positive effects on the city, due to the way that it incentivises improving your property and making the most of your land (since you're going to be taxed on it pretty mu…

I sort of agree that replacing property taxes with land-value taxes would make sense, so long as you can actually do the value assessments fairly and impartially. What doesn't remotely make sense to me is the suggestion that LVT should be the primary or even only tax, which you see others arguing for here in the comments.

I agree. I think the single tax was conceived in a time where most productive activities took the same amount of land. Nowadays, you have farms on the one hand, and something like tech companies on the other. It would be kinda crazy to tax them both based on the amount of land they use.

Re: Georgism

#113

Post by geofft » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #60

geofft wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rich yet reserved people, who keep most of their money in the bank (which lends it) and are earning an income (=productive) ... will not penalized. This goes against just about every standard defense of the ability to be rich: that rich people are job creators, that they power the economy by buying things, etc. Why should we discourage them from employing people and buying things? I don't want a loan (that needs to…

Replace "the rich" with "Lords" and your post is an adequate defense of feudal society. In other words, you're thinking "inside" the system, i.e. justifying the system with itself.

Well, the position I'm arguing against is that the lords should be left alone, that it's better for them to have their fiefdoms be isolated places than to actually employ anyone or purchase anything, and that we should use tax law to incentivize the lords to never interact with the peasants.

(Or in other words - my actual position that the nobility should be abolished. I'm just surprised to see someone say not only that it should stay, but that the world would be better if they didn't provide any of the benefits people usually claim in defense of feudal society, so I'm trying to understand what their position is.)

Re: Georgism

#114

Post by LVTfan » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

free_rms wrote: post #101

tlholaday wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What doesn't remotely make sense to me is the suggestion that LVT should be the primary or even only tax When you were new to arithmetic, did it remotely make sense to you that the number of integers and the number of even integers was the same? If you find a surprising conclusion, consider reading the argument. Perhaps you will discover that you agree with the premises and the reasoning, and the conclusion will se…

If the arithmetic for this tax scheme doesn't seem to remotely work out, ruminations on the nature of infinity aren't going to set me at ease with it. Here in the finite world, most of the money moving around is in services, while most of the land is disconnected from that economy. How are you getting 1-2 trillion in tax revenue from land without making, say, farming economically unviable? Will it just be riddled thr…

An acre of farmland might be worth $2500 or $5000, and that land has been improved by clearing, draining, fencing, etc. (improvements done by the current or an earlier owner or his tenant). LVT is based on the UNIMPROVED value of the land, so if there were an as-yet-uncleared acre nearby, it and the acre of farmland would be assessed at the same value.

An acre in midtown Manhattan might be worth $250 million to as much as $1.25 billion, before we look at the building that is on it. (An acre is a big lot in Manhattan -- a whole city block.) A tiny lot in Manhattan sells hundreds of thousands of dollars, due to its location, which the seller didn't create. The old building on it may be worth nothing.

And the 100x100 lot with a new hotel on it and the 100x100 lot next door with just a parking lot, or maybe just a chain link fence, would be assessed identically. The unimproved value of the land.

Farmers would pay little under LVT. In fact they'd be advantaged, because their buildings and equipment would not be taxed. The owners of sites in our major cities would pay in proportion to the value of their site. And frequently the land is already leased to someone who puts a building on it, which gives a sense of the value of the land at the time the lease was negotiated -- a value which is not always made public.

And why would we want to tax wages, or sales, if we could obtain from the value of land much of the revenue we need, while providing a boost to the economy via removing the deadweight loss of dumb taxes?

Re: Georgism

#115

Post by jrs235 » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #76

MiroF wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Land" for George is just things you can rent-seek on and are fixed in supply, that includes stuff like intellectual property, etc. > real estate/rents/leasing is perhaps 15% but most of that is related to the value of buildings, not the value of land. Not at all clear that most of that is related to the value of the building and also you conveniently neglect to mention that that is the largest share of GDP out of an…

How do you determine the value of intellectual property if not by looking at how much income is actually being derived from said IP? And at that point, don't you just have the same income-based corporate taxation that we already have, with extra steps?

You hold an annual auction for the exclusive rights to the property that the tax will be derived from. The current owner can choose to keep the rights and pay the tax or they can choose to sell the exclusive rights to the highest bidder who must pay and then becomes the holder of the exclusive use rights and the new owner would then also pay the tax based on the known value.

This might also usher out IP trolls and IP squatters.

Re: Georgism

#116

Post by abdullahkhalids » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #37

nabla9 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is brilliant way to solve it so that value and market-value meet. Keep the land always in market. It's called Common Ownership Self-Assessed Tax (COST). Land owner would self-assess the value of assets they possess, pay a tax on that value. The owner would be required to sell the asset to anyone willing to purchase them at this self-assessed price. If you value the land high for any reason and want to keep it,…

This seems to be directly in conflict with the idea that once you own land, it's yours. I don't see this flying at all, at least not with the current expectations of most people. Any sizable company could easily bully any number of people out of their homes to acquire the land. It's hard to overstate how much people would hate this.

Easily fixed by having an exception for people's primary place of residence. And other reasonable exceptions.

Re: Georgism

#117

Post by emilfihlman » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

Why should only bigger communities together own something? If I want to fuck out in the middle of nowhere and do my own thing, why should others be allowed to harass me there?

Additionally the government printing money, giving it to us and then requiring us to give it back does not create value, it creates a loop that causes work for nothing.

Re: Georgism

#118

Post by EGreg » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

MiroF wrote: post #107

EGreg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted you, to counteract the downvotes. You are correct... obviously science and technology have improved the lot of the ordinary person, and made us all much, much richer. The main issue is that automation tends to hurt workers while it helps consumers. And since most people are both — they have to work harder and harder just to stay in place. Until we put in place a UBI and universal health insurance, pass over…

> Edit: funny, I am getting downvoted also, for agreeing with you If the parent was being downvoted for a certain view, why is this at all surprising?

Because downvotes are not supposed to be for disagreement. This is HN. The standard is to downvote low quality comments only.

Re: Georgism

#119

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #65

xiphias2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of this tax type is encouraging efficiency. Tech companies are usually efficient, and taxing them less increases their efficiency even more. At the same time their harmful effects should be regulated (GDPR is an example of such regulation). Countries and states that let tech companies thrive are winning the race for capital.

The whole point of taxes is to fund government spending. That is a large amount of money you need to bring in every year. Taxing based on income seems to make the most sense for that, not "taxing based on efficiency". If tech companies have billions of dollars but aren't paying taxes just because their business doesn't happen to use land, how does that make sense? Why is land efficiency the only thing that matters? T…

[deleted]

Re: Georgism

#120

Post by LVTfan » Sun, May 17, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #42

LVTfan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They generally locate where they can draw on a pool of talented people, and those people are drawn by social amenities, good schools, good infrastructure. All those things contribute to land value.

You're not being concrete. How do you properly tax a tech company whose land allocation is negligible compared to the overall value of the company? Tech companies have less than 1% of their value tied up in land. If they're all-remote and cloud-based, then they have $0 in land. How would you even tax them if the only tax is based on land? Also, I live in an apartment. Should my tax be $0? Or if I owned and lived on l…

How much of the rent on your apartment is due to its location? might be 10% in a small town, but it is likely more like 50% in most cities (unless the landlord is providing a lot of services -- doorman, flowers in the lobby). In his land value tax, he'd be paying for the value of the site. In a highrise, that value gets used by dozens of housing units in each column.

You wouldn't see a tax bill because you're not a landowner. But you'd be paying your share via your monthly rent. And your rent would not rise: your landlord is already charging what the market will bear.

And if there is a vacant lot next door, its owner would be motivated to build on it or sell to someone who would. That would likely reduce the rise in your monthly rent.