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Why a land-value tax is inevitable

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Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#251

Post by arrosenberg »

throwawaysea wrote: post #165

The big moral problem I have with a recurrent tax on assets like land or improvements on land (buildings) is that it erodes the fundamental right to private ownership. What does it mean to own anything if policies can retroactively apply taxes to it or continually extract taxes and ultimately take that asset away from you? That’s simply not compatible with a free society and it amounts to theft in my opinion.

Seeing as land is limited, it's logical for governments to charge a rent on the most productive plots in order to maintain itself. I don't see how that erodes the fundamental right to private ownership. You can certainly find land with very low or no property or land taxes on it. You won't be anywhere near infrastructure, culture, food, or higher education, but your taxes will be very, very low. You are paying to participate in all the value-adding parts of society. It would only follow that improvements to the public common increases the value of your privately owned asset, and you should continue to pay your share of the upkeep based on the productive value of the land.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#252

Post by yellowapple »

quotemstr wrote: post #215
Ericson2314 wrote: post #11

1. UBI 2. LVT 3. Environmental externality taxes That's all we need to fix the 21st century. Simple as hell so basically immune to regulatory capture, and will usher in a rate of progress we haven't seen in 100 years, if ever.

> UBI I'm skeptical of UBI. The idea doesn't include any kind of automatic stabilization system to set the UBI at a sustainable level. Because UBI is not market-based, there's little information that flows into the process that sets of level of UBI and other redistribution systems. In a market system, a distributed consensus algorithm governs both wages and prices and adjusts both continuously to account for changes…

> The idea doesn't include any kind of automatic stabilization system to set the UBI at a sustainable level.

Except it does: land value.

This right here is the basis of geolibertarianism, which calls for a minimal government that exists solely to collect LVT and redistribute it directly as UBI. The UBI distributed should be equal to the opportunity cost externalized by private/exclusive land use. The cap would be a 100% LVT, where all land is leased from society as a whole (or more precisely, this minimal government representing said society).

So:

> Who decides how much UBI is enough?

The land market.

> What procedure will that person or body use?

The appraisal of the market value of land (sans the improvements upon it, like buildings).

> What is the algorithm that prevents UBI increasing without bound?

Supply and demand of land.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#253

Post by withPurpose9973 »

meatspaceping wrote: post #243
quotemstr wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI I'm skeptical of UBI. The idea doesn't include any kind of automatic stabilization system to set the UBI at a sustainable level. Because UBI is not market-based, there's little information that flows into the process that sets of level of UBI and other redistribution systems. In a market system, a distributed consensus algorithm governs both wages and prices and adjusts both continuously to account for changes…

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of t…

Dead man who knew nothing of science and modern technology once pulled uninformed philosophy out of rear. Film @ 11

There are just as many quotes from the dead that say the opposite.

Rather denigrating, low effort attempt to manipulate people today with the brain fart of a much lesser educated 200 year old corpse.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#254

Post by yellowapple »

willcipriano wrote: post #217
scarmig wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're selling the land underneath your house, not your house. And you wouldn't have to move: you'd pay some use fee to the new owner (though there'd probably be some kind of option to revaluate after a bid to prevent a whole lot of churn).

My choice in buying the home was made for twofold reasons firstly to no longer be subject to the whims of a landlord, secondly to lock in my costs of housing against inflation. This would rob me of both those advantages. I don't see how you would get any homeowners to vote for a proposal like that.

> firstly to no longer be subject to the whims of a landlord

Unless you have an allodial title (hint: you almost certainly do not), you are always subject to the whims of at least one landlord, specifically the state.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#255

Post by Spooky23 »

throwaway201103 wrote: post #204
Spooky23 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally no. Values are usually based on sales history.

Value is whatever someone will pay. If Wal-Mart offers $1MM for your land, that is what it is worth, even if the next-best offer is $500K.

Only if you sell.

LVT serves a few different interests and is sold as a cure all. Kinda like the “gold bug” of tax policy.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#256

Post by yellowapple »

paul_f wrote: post #200
mullingitover wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! So when you get a mortgage, you're paying for land plus house in the mortgage. Insurers have to know the value of the land alone so they can know the difference and insure just the house.

Actually, no, they don't. Insurers make no valuation on the land, only on the improvements. There is no appraisal done when buying a homeowners or business insurance policy

> Insurers make no valuation on the land, only on the improvements

Well

    $PROPERTY_VALUE = $LAND_VALUE + $IMPROVEMENTS_VALUE
Which means

    $LAND_VALUE = $PROPERTY_VALUE - $IMPROVEMENTS_VALUE
$PROPERTY_VALUE is set by the market automatically, and we've already established that insurers are able to calculate $IMPROVEMENTS_VALUE, so - tada! - you've now got your $LAND_VALUE.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#257

Post by Context_free »

snicker7 wrote: post #223
valuearb wrote: post #216

The problem with this op-ed is that it's based on an entirely false premise, it completely ignores how much revenues governments need. Clinton was able to run a federal government spending less than 20% of GDP, since George Walker Bush federal spending has exploded to the 25 to 30% range. The reality is that 20% is plenty, and can solve all the problems government has the ability to solve. Need to start by NOT 1) ser…

Defence is 12% of federal spending -- or around ~2.5% of GDP, or a whopping 0.5% more than the NATO threshold.

It takes some tricky math to get where military spending is only 12% of federal spending.

First, a soldier wounded in Afghanistan and being treated in a VA hospital would have to have that cost excluded from the budget.

The department of energy dealing with nuclear weapon waste is excluded from that budget.

The office of a foreign US embassy serving as cover for a CIA case officer is excluded from that budget.

Interest on military deficit spending from last year is excluded from that budget.

In fact, add all these things up which don't fall within this theoretical 12% and it comes to hundreds of billions of dollars.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#258

Post by yellowapple »

joe_the_user wrote: post #160

I think the problem with land-value taxes is that objective valuation of raw land value is actually difficult and even arbitrary. If you say a parcel of land is valuable because there's a building on it, you wind-up with just a real estate tax. If you value all land the same, people will just abandon ownership of large parcels, probably with paradoxical results. Almost automatically, the assessment of just land has t…

> people will just abandon ownership of large parcels

Good. That's the whole point. That abandonment of ownership gives other people the opportunity to make use of it for their own benefit.

That is: the very act of land ownership externalizes opportunity costs on the rest of society, and this is what underpins wealth inequality. LVT forces landowners to internalize those costs.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#259

Post by yellowapple »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #66
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are people who have more than one child (or 2.1, if you’d like for monogamous couples) selfish too?

No, or not nearly as much. The needs of a child are mediated by productivity, which has been wildly different throughout history. E.g. maybe we'll have practical fusion in 100 years and can support 100 billion people no problem. But the surface area of the earth is fixed. If you want 100 acres to do nothing good with, do it with a giant seastead.

> If you want 100 acres to do nothing good with, do it with a giant seastead.

And even then, the surface area of the Earth is still fixed. So is the volume (unless you're willing to destroy Earth as we know it in the process).

So a seastead just kicks the can down the road. If you want 100 acres to do nothing good with, do it in space.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#260

Post by bobthepanda »

valuearb wrote: post #235
bobthepanda wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pork barrel spending has not been a thing since 2011 when the House banned earmarks. This info is woefully out of date, and at least some attribute the sharp increase in partisanship and gridlock to the ban on earmarks preventing horse trading.

LOL. No longer not using the term "earmarks" in financing legislation is not the same as ending pork barrel spending. If it is, please explain the SLS. It's entire design was dictated by Congress to use specific components from specific contractors.

Do you have a source for your assertions about the SLS? I can't seem to pull anything up.
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