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Tax the Land

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Re: Tax the Land

#231

Post by jdminhbg »

causality0 wrote: post #204

Local governments, which have been granted near unchecked authority by state governments, are entirely captured by homeowners. I'm not fully clear on this statement. Is it putting forth that local governments shouldn't be controlled by the people who are local, or is it saying that homeowners hold more power than renters? If the former, that's just silly. If the latter, renters get the same one vote per person as eve…

> Is it putting forth that local governments shouldn't be controlled by the people who are local

It's obviously the case that local voters do not get "unchecked authority" over their local government. They can't vote to say that black people aren't allowed to live there, they can't vote to build an unregulated chemical factory, etc. The proposition that local voters should be allowed total control over zoning is defensible, but it's not a given.

Re: Tax the Land

#232

Post by archhn »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #224
archhn wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they don't care enough to vote that's their problem. The life of a renter is completely different from that of a homeowner. Most renters are of a lower class, living paycheck to paycheck. All they think about is staying afloat, not getting involved in local politics. You need a surplus of time and energy, and roots, to get involved. Comments like this ignore the conditions under which people live and how these c…

I don't believe this to be true. Maybe if your goal is to live where you can't afford.

It was true for my working class family.

Re: Tax the Land

#233

Post by gravypod »

joshjob42 wrote: post #206
atlgator wrote: post #176

Isn’t that what property taxes are at the local level?

The major, important difference is that LVT only taxes the site-value of a property, not the value of the buildings etc on it. More or less you'd be charged property taxes as if your lot was a blank empty lot. So for instance if you buy some land and redevelop it into an apartment building or a stadium etc your LVT would hardly change (it might a bit because your building might increase the value of properties nearby…

> it might a bit because your building might increase the value of properties nearby, but that's generally a pretty weak effect so it would have a small impact on your taxes

That sounds like a fantastic way for a developer to force out all of "the poors" around them by developing an area and making the value of their land skyrocket. Since they cant hold it they have to sell which kicks them out of their home for less than what their property would be worth.

Might work fine for NYC where no one actually owns anything. Sounds like a hard deal for a majority of the country where people can conceivably own land.

Re: Tax the Land

#234

Post by bombcar »

jdminhbg wrote: post #231
causality0 wrote: post #204

Local governments, which have been granted near unchecked authority by state governments, are entirely captured by homeowners. I'm not fully clear on this statement. Is it putting forth that local governments shouldn't be controlled by the people who are local, or is it saying that homeowners hold more power than renters? If the former, that's just silly. If the latter, renters get the same one vote per person as eve…

> Is it putting forth that local governments shouldn't be controlled by the people who are local It's obviously the case that local voters do not get "unchecked authority" over their local government. They can't vote to say that black people aren't allowed to live there, they can't vote to build an unregulated chemical factory, etc. The proposition that local voters should be allowed total control over zoning is defe…

No, they have to do those things indirectly via HOAs and property values.

The main real problem is FYIGM, which means that in a local area with all land used there's no incentive for those living there to vote to change how it is.

Re: Tax the Land

#235

Post by gravypod »

noahtallen wrote: post #189
flenserboy wrote: post #23

This would be a great way to destroy (privately held) farms and significantly, permanently raise food prices.

It seems like you’re assuming farmers don’t get taxed on land. According to a brief Google search, “Nationally, 1.9 million farms paid $9.4 billion in property taxes.” The question would be whether removing that in favor of a land tax would really change that. I’m not sure it would make it worse, given that there are (relatively speaking) fewer “property” improvements on top of the land in a farm. Either way, I don’t…

> It seems like you’re assuming farmers don’t get taxed on land. According to a brief Google search, “Nationally, 1.9 million farms paid $9.4 billion in property taxes.”

So, for all of the farm land we average to ~5k/farmer? It sounds like what is being discussed in this thread is a tax that would be debilitating to the land speculation market. 5k would not prevent a speculator from holding a plot of land.

Re: Tax the Land

#236

Post by oogali »

throw123123123 wrote: post #228
sieabahlpark wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe this to be true. Maybe if your goal is to live where you can't afford.

As an immigrant that can't ever vote, has restrictions on buying property, and belonged to a 40% immigration population in SF, i beg to differ.

Are you currently in SF or in Vancouver?

Re: Tax the Land

#237

Post by Cd00d »

bombcar wrote: post #12
mdorazio wrote: post #9

Not really stated in the article are three caveats: 1) Zoning laws have to change as well to actually allow development of the land being taxed toward more productive ends. 2) The land tax amount needs to be high enough that the pain of the tax effectively forces owners to improve what's on the land. A homeowner sitting on a million dollar piece of property in California taxed at ~1% is still unlikely to build an apa…

The average single-family dwelling landlord is subsidizing someone; rents are usually below actual carrying costs (maintenance, etc) and most landlords would be better off selling. It’s one of the reasons banks and companies aren’t in the single family rental business. The main thing that covers for it is property appreciation - the rent is used to just offset carrying costs while you wait for the property to go up i…

I thought private equity was going into the single family rental business. In a big way.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/magazine/wall-street-land...

Re: Tax the Land

#238

Post by bombcar »

loeg wrote: post #198
missedthecue wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most suburban/exurban SFH in most regions of the US have their own wells, septic, and plumbing. They're not on city water.

Most suburban SFH is on well water and septic? I really doubt that. Exurban maybe, rural sure.

Yeah, suburbs are developed and on city water. Only in suburbs of rural areas do you find developments where everyone's on septic - the minimum here is 5 acres if you have a septic system, so every development with lots smaller than that is at least on shared septic (at what point shared septic becomes a sewer system is up for debate).

Amusingly enough I knew a guy who lived in a suburb of a major CA city, but since his house had been built when it was rural, he was unknowingly on a septic system even though everyone else on his block was on city sewer.

Re: Tax the Land

#239

Post by Cd00d »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #186
long_time_gone wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t really a source though, it’s requiring the other commenter to prove the point you made. Anecdotally, I know people who buy single family homes and rent them for profit. My 3 bed, 2 bath single-family home has a $3,000/monthly mortgage, I could easily rent it for more than $3,500 (closer to $4,000). Take out 10% for maintenance fees, and I net $200 a month.

Average expenses for a landlord on a well-managed SFH run 45 - 50% of gross rents.

I find this extremely dubious based on my own experiences with renting and home maintenance. You need a citation to be at all credible.

Re: Tax the Land

#240

Post by bombcar »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #111
giantg2 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you accept this to be true and good oh, then it makes perfect sense." One can accept that the government owns the land while simultaneously believing that the government can abuse that power, just like a bad landlord can.

I don't disagree, But I do think the idea that the government, not individuals, is the ultimate owner of the land is a fundamental assumption of LVT. Not all people believe this.

Nevada for a short time had the option of getting allodial title.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title#Nevada

Proper use of allodial title and homeowner's exemptions could go a long way.

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