Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Georgism

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 338 posts

Re: Georgism

#241

Post by snidane »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #206
snidane wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military is actually a great example for LVT. If you mean defence part of it. Invading other countries is likely profitable for select groups so who else should pay for it if it gets approved. But let's focus on defence. It's not that much individual people, who need protection, because they can flee to another country in case of war. What actually needs protection is property which you cannot take with you. And voil…

First: "They can flee to another country in case of war" is terrible reasoning. You expect the other country to let them in? All of them? Yeah, that's not the way things actually happen in this flawed world. Most of them will not have the opportunity to flee. So... they should just die? No, the military is there to protect the people , not just the wealth. So your post seems like it's trying to rationalize a not-up-f…

Look. You only seem to want to make it complicated.

If your military is too expensive and not covered by LVT, just go ahead and add a specific tax to fund your military. If you can justify that it'll protect everybody then people will be fine with it.

Idea of LVT as a single or zero tax is a political move to get you thinking about better government funding schemes. You should think of "paying for specific services" instead of "pooling money and allocating them according to wishes of select few" as is the case of current tax systems.

Re: Georgism

#242

Post by AnimalMuppet »

snidane wrote: post #241
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First: "They can flee to another country in case of war" is terrible reasoning. You expect the other country to let them in? All of them? Yeah, that's not the way things actually happen in this flawed world. Most of them will not have the opportunity to flee. So... they should just die? No, the military is there to protect the people , not just the wealth. So your post seems like it's trying to rationalize a not-up-f…

Look. You only seem to want to make it complicated. If your military is too expensive and not covered by LVT, just go ahead and add a specific tax to fund your military. If you can justify that it'll protect everybody then people will be fine with it. Idea of LVT as a single or zero tax is a political move to get you thinking about better government funding schemes. You should think of "paying for specific services"…

> Idea of LVT as a single or zero tax is a political move to get you thinking about better government funding schemes.

You know, if you had said that up front, we could have had a more productive discussion. But everybody's been saying "This is The Right Way(TM) to do taxes!" When non-true-believers point out all the problems, then we get "it's just a talking point".

In fact, I suspect that a number of LVT supporters on this thread don't agree with you. I suspect that several of them believe that it's the answer.

Re: Georgism

#243

Post by VHRanger »

crazygringo wrote: post #203
balfirevic wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land value tax is considered among the economists as being one of the least distortionary taxes.

I don't believe so. It's considered to remove distortions in land use , as compared to property taxes that include the value of structures. In other words, you get less vacant lots and more productive use of land. Which there are good arguments for. But proposing to replace income and sales taxes with land value taxes, making it the primary tax -- which would necessarily skyrocket the land value tax to produce the sa…

> I don't believe so.

Thanks for giving your off the cuff opinion against a consensus of people studying the question

> which would necessarily skyrocket the land value tax to produce the same tax revenue at the end of the day -- would be extremely distortionary.

It's distortionary against the existing distortions, by reducing them.

Anything reducing tax distortions is "distortionary" by your argument's logic

Re: Georgism

#244

Post by TheCoelacanth »

free_rms wrote: post #124
LVTfan wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mu…

So it's all on the assessor to decide the 'proper' unimproved land values to raise enough revenue while not driving the wrong people out of business? At a national scale? On that note, is the inherent land value of a lot in Bushwick way higher then 20 years ago now that they've gentrified? Is neighborhood desirability an 'unimproved' attribute? I very much get where you guys are coming from in a philosophical sense,…

That's the same assessments for property taxes work now except that they are looking at the value of improvements in addition to the value of the unimproved land.

Re: Georgism

#245

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

CydeWeys wrote: post #32
JSavageOne wrote: post #17

I've yet to see a single valid objection as to why LVT (Land Value Tax) should not be the primary tax, yet it's nowhere to be found in the political dialogue. Such a shame that the majority of the tax burden instead falls on the working class while the landowners get a free ride.

What tax should tech companies pay then, given that the only land they really need is cheap rural land for data centers? This taxation system does make sense for land, but there's way more economic activity happening that isn't associated with land than there is that is.

They should be paying wages. Which will the be used to fund other businesses, increasing the value of the land they use.

Re: Georgism

#246

Post by snidane »

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.

You were sold a lie. You don't own land today if you buy it.

Consider what the government would do if a huge oil deposit was found under your house.

Re: Georgism

#247

Post by LVTfan »

epistasis wrote: post #199
NumberWangMan wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, that's a good point. Though, wouldn't an LVT that encourage companies to push all their employees to work from home, where possible? There are certainly benefits to that, but it might mean that certain industries get taxed much more heavily than others. Is it ok if distributed work-from-home software companies pay no tax at all, because they have no offices? The workers would pay tax on their own houses and apar…

If you take this a few more steps, what happens is that those employees that can work more remotely without significantly decreasing productivity will leave, because of the savings. Which will decrease land prices from those that truly benefit from co-locating, increasing their profits. A LVT will generally greatly decrease the concentration of wealth. The massive concentration of wealth in the Bay Area economy comes…

Many of them will stay for the amenities that a vibrant city offers them, or the ability for both spouses to maintain careers there, or to be near friends and families.

Those who do leave will likely be replaced by others seeking those things.

Re: Georgism

#248

Post by brudgers »

LVTfan wrote: post #210
naravara wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would probably want to include some tax advantaged incentives to maintain a bit of public space, public art, parks, or just green spaces. Giving over some portion of your land for public benefit, even if limited use, should be encouraged rather than penalized. It would also encourage more interesting usage patterns and development than pure land-use maximization would do. The latter might have you end up with blo…

Frederick Law Olmsted realized early on that even a huge project like Central Park could be funded from the increase in land value it created in the neighborhoods surrounding it.

The risk when extrapolating from Manhattan is when extrapolating to places significantly unlike Manhattan. When Central Park was started, Manhattan already had a population density in excess of 10,000 people per km^2. Even Boston today is little more than half that. Munich, less than half. San Jose little more than one fifth.

Central Park worked because the existing density was already high and there was no way for Manhattan to grow outward (dredging excepted).

Re: Georgism

#249

Post by LVTfan »

tlholaday wrote: post #53
alexmingoia wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone being able to take my house or business away at any time because they have more money doesn’t sound brilliant or practical. It’s also not market based at all. Trades are willing.

Yes, trades are willing; and when you turn down a bona-fide offer to buy your house for $X, that is very strong evidence that you value your house at more than $X.

or have good reason to think that if you hold onto it for another year, it will be worth a lot more.

There were years, under Prop 13, when many people's houses -- that is, their land -- rose in value by more than their gross salary. Not their savings, but their gross wages!

And Prop 13 keeps taxes artificially low, driving the prices up. Normal turnover doesn't happen, so retirees stay in family-sized homes close to jobs they no longer fill, and young families are forced to "drive until they qualify" for a mortgage, and every workday thereafter.

Re: Georgism

#250

Post by nybble41 »

pydry wrote: post #103
CydeWeys wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think a lot of people don't really realize how much free money is creamed off by property owners and resource extractors. Not least because of their constant attempts to disguise what they do as productive. It's not like people are in a coffee shop and seeing "% of this product that goes to rent" built into the prices. They tend to assume that the price of the cup is basically the ingredients (which is why people b…

Rent is hardly "free money". Businesses and individuals pay rent in lieu of purchasing the property they use outright. There are times when it makes sense to own your own property and times when it makes sense to rent. If you did away with rent then everyone would be forced to buy property instead—which would be less flexible and not significantly cheaper.

(Edit: Fixed typo.)

Post reply on HN