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The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

nytimes.com

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Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#131

Post by jampekka »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #129
jampekka wrote: post #52

Especially contemporary Georgists seem to be fixated on land tax. In the 19th century a big focus on land kinda made sense because agriculture was such a huge part of the economy. What's missed is the general idea. It's not land per se but any ownership that can be/is used for "rent seeking" (i.e. getting money without contributing any work). Nowadays things like intellectual property, natural resources and major inf…

I don't buy either the premise or the conclusion of your last paragraph. If I own a sewing machine that I use to do piece work, that doesn't make my sewing machine rent-seeking. It makes it a tool that I use to do work. But yes, expand this to IP. Tax Microsoft and Disney for the full value of their copyrights. If they don't want to pay the tax, they can let the copyright lapse early. Tax google for the full value of…

In the typical socialist divide of different kinds of property a sewing machine that you use yourself would not be considered privately owned capital (private property). In general "private property" are things that yield profits without the owner doing the work. If you rented out the sewing machine to somebody else to work for, the things get a bit blurrier. If you own a sweatshop with 100 sewing machines, it's clearly "private property".

The socialist terminology around the different forms of property is really bad and causes a lot of confusion.

Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#132

Post by zozbot234 »

jjoonathan wrote: post #113
zozbot234 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with rolling leases is that policymakers have a big incentive to break the leasing arrangement and sell the land outright/give it away to their corrupt cronies, because this lets them capture value for themselves that would properly belong to future generations. Leases may work if they have strong, quasi-constitutional protections though.

Right, but if we let "rich people want to be paid for being rich" stop us then we can't accomplish anything because that will never change :)

I'm just saying that rolling leases have a very real incentive problem compared to other approaches. So ongoing taxation (i.e. LVT) may be a better all-around solution. Policymakers can also monetize future tax revenues, by taking on more government debt; but this tends to be a lot more visible and make bond investors more upset compared to the obscurity of land sales.

Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#133

Post by dzhiurgis »

303uru wrote: post #10

I'm a huge proponent of land tax. Here's why I think it's worth considering: 1. Economic Efficiency: Unlike income or consumption taxes, an LVT is non-distortionary. It doesn't discourage productive activities like work, saving, or investment. Land is a fixed resource; its supply doesn't change with price or tax fluctuations. Therefore, an LVT wouldn't distort market incentives, unlike other taxes. By shifting the ta…

What are the downsides?

Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#134

Post by xnx »

Are there any areas that try and tax more directly based on services used (electric, water, fire, police, roads, etc.) rather than how large your property is or how fancy your house is? The idea of assessors trying to make judgements about the quality of a building seems a pretty silly way to pay for city services.

Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#135

Post by bryanlarsen »

strangesmells06 wrote: post #114
bryanlarsen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's capital gains tax free, but it's far from tax-free. Myself, I pay about $7000 a year in property taxes on mine. Eliminating those and increasing corporate/second property taxes instead would be insane. That means that renters would be responsible for most of the taxes required to maintain the streets in front of my house.

What you seem to not understand is that the government has enough money to maintain the roads with out property tax entirely. It would force the government to be more efficient with their money and shrink the governement to just the essentials. You think any for of US government operates on a shoestring budget? They are the most bloated entities on the earth. And its based off the backs of the poor and middle class.

City governments certainly do not have enough money.

Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#136

Post by TMWNN »

robertlagrant wrote: post #55
303uru wrote: post #10

I'm a huge proponent of land tax. Here's why I think it's worth considering: 1. Economic Efficiency: Unlike income or consumption taxes, an LVT is non-distortionary. It doesn't discourage productive activities like work, saving, or investment. Land is a fixed resource; its supply doesn't change with price or tax fluctuations. Therefore, an LVT wouldn't distort market incentives, unlike other taxes. By shifting the ta…

Just some possibly ill-thought out comments: > Unlike income or consumption taxes, an LVT is non-distortionary. It doesn't discourage productive activities like work, saving, or investment It's not great for anyone who chose to invest in land based on the current rules, and then the rules change. > Many landowners hold onto vacant or underutilized land as a speculative investment, waiting for its value to increase Th…

>> Unlike income or consumption taxes, an LVT is non-distortionary. It doesn't discourage productive activities like work, saving, or investment

>It's not great for anyone who chose to invest in land based on the current rules, and then the rules change.

Taxing land is intended to change current land investment behavior.

Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#137

Post by Obscurity4340 »

detourdog wrote: post #36
AlexandrB wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sustainable Land Use Hmmm, I don't get this point. If the incentive is to sell of develop your land what happens to "fallow" land that serves as a habitat for plants or animals? Seems like this would encourage developing land even if it's in a suboptimal location and would otherwise remain fallow, which seems less sustainable than the status quo.

We specifically had to sell the third generation farm due to 10x increase in taxes one year. We were under utilizing it and now its a hospital among other things.

So...happy ending ?

Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#138

Post by Obscurity4340 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #116
robertlagrant wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to the way you phrase your comments, I'm struggling to pull any neutral points out to respond to. Maybe this one: > and since when are prices of land decreasing suddenly a terrible thing? Because if it decreases, then it will discourage people from selling. You think it will increase selling (and for some reason think that's good); I'm saying that this might counteract that.

No, if the price of land decreases, it only discourages people from selling if they think that the price will come back some time in the future. A permanent tax change won't make people think that. More: If the tax rate has gone up enough that the price has gone down, then if I hold it, I'm also having to pay the higher taxes year after year. That's going to encourage selling, not discourage it. I don't like Georgism…

> other reasons

What might those be? Can you expand on why you don't "like" it...

Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#139

Post by jampekka »

jjoonathan wrote: post #130
jampekka wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is land tax really more propaganda resistent? There are justified concerns that it does disproportionally affect the less well off. And OTOH things like taxing wealth and capital gains are wildly popular. Isn't class conflict a direct and inevitable result of private ownership of capital? What kind of arrangement makes companies pay more for labor than they have to?

> Is land tax really more propaganda resistent? Yes. Capital interests have spent the last 50 years laying minefields around the concepts of socialism. "Socialism is when more taxes," "socialism is when unions stop your employer from paying you more than your lazy coworker," "socialism is when you own nothing (as in property, not just assets)." Focusing on small, concrete reforms allow you to navigate around the mine…

I agree that such smaller reforms are needed (and what we have need to be defended) but "clearing the name" of socialism can and should be done simultaneously. Also depends on country and audience how bad or good the socialism label is.

Also at least here in Finland land tax is more a center-right thing, and falls under the general umbrella of "neutral taxation", which in practice is usually a dog whistle for flat or regressive taxes.

> No, it depends on the terms of ownership. Finite terms and progressive taxation can prevent the exponential runaway that establishes and perpetuates class structures. > Policy that makes labor less desperate and therefore have higher bargaining power. There are many levers to pull.

Pedantically there's class conflict whenever there are classes that have conflicting interests (e.g. workers want more pay but owners want to pay less). But yes, its effects can be reduced with various policies.

Re: The 'Georgists' Are Out and they want to tax your land

#140

Post by r3trohack3r »

dukeyukey wrote: post #111
r3trohack3r wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure this is the right lens. Poorer renter isn’t a static label, we need to build paths that allow the lower and middle class to build equity. The goal of these policies, IMH(umble)O, should be to help poorer renters become richer homeowners. I feel like you do that by reducing the total cost of walking that path. Not by increasing their tax obligation every step up the socio-economic ladder they climb on the…

Equally, you don't help people by taxing the poorer more than the richer. So maybe we should just tax land as land, and leave it at that? Being a renter is part of that path after all.

> Being a renter is part of that path after all

Renters are not building equity. They are spending their wealth every month and accumulating no equity in return.

I don't agree with calling a "homeowner" rich. Owning the ground beneath your feet is a big part of having equity. With a mortgage, unlike rent, every month an increasing amount of your wealth accumulates as equity as you pay off your principal. Once you pay off your mortgage, you've significantly reduced your monthly burn rate and can start moving your accumulating equity into retirement accounts.

Reducing the total cost of primary home ownership, reducing the cost of financing a primary residence to help build equity, etc. are all important parts of giving upward class mobility.

These are not things you want to disincentivize. You want your renters to become owners. You want your workers to become small business owners. You want your communities to build equity in themselves.

If you tell me that being a homeowner today makes you rich, I'll tell you that is part of the problem.

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