Tax the Land • Hacker News Board

Re: Tax the Land

#331

Post by apendleton » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:03 AM UTC

chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #230

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…

> renters get the same one vote per person as everybody else It's not just directly voting for a city councilor, planning board member, etc. that counts. Showing up to public meetings to show support or disagreement with something can do much to pressure those elected officials. But renters are going to have a much more difficult time showing solidarity for pro-development action, not only because of the difference i…

> much more strongly driven to show up because the focus is on what they lose. Character of neighborhood, traffic, safety, noise, etc. and the threat against the status quo seems more likely to trigger that visceral defense mechanism.

Not just those. For most home-owners, their homes are by far the highest-value assets they own, and especially given the lack of strong social safety net in the US, they often represent a large store of value that home-owners expect to be able to support them in retirement, in the event of unforeseen emergencies, etc. The thread of homes losing their value can be much more tangible than just fears about neighborhood character (and those aren't nothing).

Re: Tax the Land

#332

Post by s1artibartfast » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:04 AM UTC

kudu wrote: post #277

s1artibartfast wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key word down payment. You put 200k down on the rental and get 200k in rent. You pay 1.6 million on a 800k loan and own the house at the end. Without appreciation, you are 600k in the hole

I don't understand where the 1.6 million came from. If you're talking about interest on the loan, the premise was that the rent covers the mortgage payment (interest and capital) plus maintenance plus returns some net cash. In that case, when the net cash has returned enough to cover the downpayment, you'd be richer by the entire value of the house even without appreciation.

You are correct. Renters cover the mortgage and you are neutral at 35 years. Not in bebt

Re: Tax the Land

#333

Post by Manuel_D » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:05 AM UTC

teakettle42 wrote: post #302

Manuel_D wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude here is precisely why local zoning is ineffective. The people who are negatively impacted by anti-development policies are the ones that don't get the privilege of living in economically powerful population centers in the first place. Sure, the home-owners might grumble about an apartment blocking their view, more crowded restaurants, or "neighborhood character as a city grows. The people who are negati…

> … and the people who can't even afford to move there in the first place. There’s no inalienable right to live in a popular place you cannot afford. Can you articulate an ethical argument for why it’s a problem that not everyone can afford to move to the most desirable cities?

There's no inalienable right to not be cripplingly impoverished. But any ethical countries would try to ameliorate that condition.

Is it ethical for a select few to grow enormously wealthy by driving up the cost of living for the many by deliberately causing a shortage of a basic need?

People need jobs to live. They also need a roof over their heads. The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas, but the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets. Disincentivizing this sort of rent seeking behavior is precisely the kind of thing property taxes accomplish.

Re: Tax the Land

#334

Post by closeparen » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:08 AM UTC

anamax wrote: post #303

pertymcpert wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider London.

Note that "{place} is not good because of too many people" happens at different numbers for different people. Some people think that YV already has too many people while others would be happy with 1M people. That said, it's not true that every place can remain good with an arbitrarily large number of people. More to the point, it's not true that every {good} place can remain good with as many people who would like to…

People have different preferences, and different kinds of places are strengthened or weakened by different kinds of development. A pastoral scene is strengthened by pristine nature. An urban scene is strengthened by people and culture. However:

a) Permitting systems are biased towards preferences for lower intensity; it is asymmetrically easier to block buildings than to force them through.

b) People who would prefer to live in more intense settings are just as harmed by low-intensity settings as you would be by higher intensity. Their preferences are just as important. There has to be a sorting. But…

c) Postwar suburban sprawl, with its quarter acres and strip malls and pedestrian hostility, is the near universal law of the land. Even in those places that are crying out to be more urban, like the vacant lots within or the slightly lower intensity suburbs neighborhoods encircling the cores of our thriving cities. Even though there is so much diversity in preference and place-appropriateness, the space of what can be built today is extremely homogeneous. The iconic neighborhoods, vistas, differences the character of the built environments of different places mostly comes down to how much is left, of which eras, prior to the disastrous suburban mania we’re stuck with today.

Re: Tax the Land

#335

Post by slavik81 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:09 AM UTC

charlescooper wrote: post #254

wan23 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a place where there should be more homes if you were looking at it from a regional perspective, it is in the interest of the people who live there to block those new homes from being built to limit supply of the asset they own. The people who would vote in favor of the new homes don't actually get to vote, since they don't live there yet.

I think it makes sense that people who don’t live within a community should not be permitted to vote in that community’s elections. Consider the question for states or countries. Would it make sense for Massachusetts residents to vote in Connecticut‘s elections? Or Canadian residents to vote in the US’s elections?

You can do the same thing right down to neighbourhoods. Why should zoning be done at the municipal level?

If I live in Ward 10 of the city, why should the people of Ward 11 have any say in the by-laws for a neighbourhood that they don't live in? I'd argue because cohesive planning across neighbourhood boundaries is necessary for a healthy city.

The difference between your position and that of the grandparent is not one of fundamental principle. You're just at different places on a continuous scale.

Re: Tax the Land

#336

Post by apendleton » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:11 AM UTC

notreallyserio wrote: post #151

Hammershaft wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course it will distort choices and leave some people worse off. If the author can't see that, then they have a serious bias problem. The whole point of the land value tax is to tax land to encourage higher density and higher cost use. Under our current system we subsidize low value land uses by subsidizing the crap out of infrastructure to expansions of suburban areas zoned for single family homes. https://www.y…

> You are thinking in absolute terms and not on the margins. If the marginal income tax beyond a threshold jumps by %10, then even discounting the increasingly marginal value of each additional dollar earned I will value the return on work less when I hit that tax threshold. And given you don't want that dollar, and given the dollar is still on offer (the work's still gotta get done) someone else will earn it instead…

> and given the dollar is still on offer (the work's still gotta get done) someone else will earn it instead

Maybe, maybe not. The supply of work to be done isn't static. It might well be that the work is unpleasant, and everyone qualified to do it would now earn less than they did before because of the increased taxes, and it's now no longer worth it to any of them, so you can only get anyone to do it by paying more... but maybe now whatever the work product is isn't worth the higher cost, and you decide to just not offer the service or make the widget anymore, or it becomes worth it to automate it and not employ anyone, etc. etc.

Re: Tax the Land

#337

Post by teakettle42 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:13 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #333

teakettle42 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> … and the people who can't even afford to move there in the first place. There’s no inalienable right to live in a popular place you cannot afford. Can you articulate an ethical argument for why it’s a problem that not everyone can afford to move to the most desirable cities?

There's no inalienable right to not be cripplingly impoverished. But any ethical countries would try to ameliorate that condition. Is it ethical for a select few to grow enormously wealthy by driving up the cost of living for the many by deliberately causing a shortage of a basic need? People need jobs to live. They also need a roof over their heads. The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro area…

> deliberately causing a shortage of a basic need

There’s no housing shortage.

There’s a limited supply in highly desirable locations because they’re highly desirable.

People can and do live elsewhere, working local jobs or commuting.

> The jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in a few metro areas

That’s just one of many problems of scale; the solution is not to keep scaling up.

> … the home-owning class constrains the supply of housing and drives up the price of their own assets.

Nobody is obligated to destroy their own community to accommodate the interests of rent-seeking land developers and people who don’t live there.

Re: Tax the Land

#338

Post by strken » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:14 AM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #188

strken wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really buy the monoculture argument, for two reasons. Firstly, the first nightclub to open in an area with demand for music and alcohol, or cafe with demand for coffee and croissants, is going to very profitable. Secondly, most businesses rent. They rent from profit-seeking commercial landlords who charge them a market rate. A land value tax is loosely based on the same market rate, just not inclusive of impr…

I believe that some things which are necessary for a healthy society are, are not, and cannot be made to be, profitable by themselves. Nightclubs was my guess as to what one of those things could be, parks was another. Other examples which are usually brought up are public transit and the postal service. These might never earn enough income to afford the space they take up in a city center, but it is still vital that…

> public transit and the postal service

Hang on, what does loss-making public infrastructure paid for by taxes have to do with the taxation of the land it sits on? If the government already pays for railway stations and parks and post offices, why would it be a problem for the government to tax itself more?

I agree that there are things which have positive externalities that are not profitable in themselves. Those things already exist and the government pays for them using taxes.

> A more charitable view might be that the landlord likes having a nightclub where it is.

If the business owners were accepting below market rate because they wanted to keep a business there, then they're effectively spending money on charity. In that case, yes, raising taxes on them might cause them to give less. Suggesting that we leave the surplus value of land with landlords because they're going to use some of it on charitable giving, instead of to the government, is a coherent position.

I'm not sure I agree with it, though. I think a small fraction of landlords will give low rents to businesses they like, but most of them will just charge tenants close to market rate. I think in that case, I'd rather give most of the surplus value to governments instead.

Re: Tax the Land

#339

Post by d4mi3n » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:14 AM UTC

AlotOfReading wrote: post #324

teakettle42 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe everyone has a right to housing in any place they might desire to live?

No, of course not. The point is that there's a more nuanced discussion to be had here about what these limits and rights ought to be.

    Doesn’t that answer my question, then?
    
    There’s nothing inherently wrong if not everyone can afford to live in desirable cities.

This comes off as a bad faith counter-argument. AlotOfReading has explicitly stated he believes there exist nuances of substance to this discussion. This response completely ignores his statements in favor of what may be a false dichotomy.

teakettle42: How could one address AlotOfReading's concerns about exclusionary policy making and resource allocation?

I'm of the thinking that it is fine to say one subscribes to the belief that one can't simply live where one chooses for a variety of reasons, but it's another thing to condone, implicitly or otherwise, that only certain classes of people may live in desirable areas. I feel doing so is antithetical to a society that values social mobility.

What I _do_ feel is an under discussed thread of this topic are policies and practices that could be put in place to allow for a greater number of people to have an _opportunity_ to live in such areas. Low income housing, zoning changes, and tax incentives geared towards improving the socioeconomic diversity of an area are some approaches.

Unfortunately, none of these things are possible without local political support or overarching legislation/policy requiring it--bringing us full circle to Manuel_D's original comment.

Re: Tax the Land

#340

Post by ajb » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:15 AM UTC

inter_netuser wrote: post #295

chii wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A busy major international port would need to be taxed very differently than a sparsely attended beach just a mile away. This seems very difficult to get right. you could imagine that the taxation is tied to the value of the land, which can be calculated as the rent income, minus the value of improvements upon the land (such as any buildings, which can be estimated by the cost of construction and maintenance over t…

valuations are always subjective. you pretend it's like some sort of precise science, but it is not, never was, and never will be. ffs, the example is a major international port, not a cookie-cutter shoebox-sized condo. The very first thing that will happen upon implementation of LVT is simple "rebranding" of "renting" into "mortgages". What tax do you charge then? some LLC "owns" the port. some bank provides it a "m…

The Romans had a solution to this. You self declare a value, the government gets a right to purchase your property at that value, which they exercise if they think you declared too low. Otherwise you are taxed.

Not everyone will likes that idea, but it shows that a non subjective solution exists, it and where there is one, there may be more.