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

High property taxes are good

brooock.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 620 posts

Re: High property taxes are good

#371

Post by at_compile_time »

horsawlarway wrote: post #264
raldi wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just let property owners declare a value for their land, and give anyone the right to buy it for 120% of that value at any time, with the existing owner given a grace period where they can restate their estimate.

My strong suspicion is that this will completely fuck over the elderly and marginalized communities. It also requires property owners to do EXTENSIVE research and information gathering CONSTANTLY to ensure that the number they put down is reasonable. Many of them literally can't (ex: my 87 year old Neighbor Phylis doesn't care what her house is worth, because she plans to die in it, and isn't seeking to maximize util…

The poor widow argument against land value taxes has been a mainstay of the landowning class for over a century. [Winston Churchill had had enough of it back in 1909.](https://web.archive.org/web/20010728120002/http://home.vicne...)

Guaranteeing that people can take up the same space that they did when the population was half its current level is a great way to ensure that future generations have nowhere to live.

Re: High property taxes are good

#372

Post by abeppu »

If you want to tamp down on speculation, can't we be a little more creative and targeted than just high vs low property tax rates?

- Some cities are already getting into vacancy taxes; here the problem seems to be enforcement. No one's going door to door in luxury condo buildings looking for empty ones.

- Can a tax due when a property is sold be based on how long the seller owned the property? If you lived there for 20 years and now you're moving to downsize, you pay a low rate. If you held it for 9 months to renovate and flip it, pay a high rate.

- Can a tax rate due when a property is sold be based on the number of homes the seller has been purchased in the past 5 years? If you've been a resident homeowner, low rate. If you're a development company bought subdivision land and is now able to sell dozens of houses, low rate. If you're a speculator who has bought several homes, and are flipping them, high rate.

Re: High property taxes are good

#373

Post by int_19h »

lettergram wrote: post #86
vanilla_nut wrote: post #2

In my region of northern New Hampshire, there are a lot of retired folks with houses rising from $200k-ish values to closer to $500k-ish values in the last 5-10 years. As such, there's a lot of discussion around lowering property taxes to help these retirees. In my opinion? Fuck 'em. Property taxes are a brilliant method of perfectly progressive taxation: you can always choose to live in a cheaper home. If your home…

Almost anyone can afford property… provided you’re willing to move. I’m where I live it costs $40-$50k / acre up to $150k / acre. 30 min away it’s $3-4k / acre. I personally am opposed to property taxes. I think it basically implies rent of the land. Then again, I’m basically opposed to all taxes except tariffs and perhaps licensing fees. For instance, you could implement a licensing fee to use the public roads. Or a…

Do you expect the government to protect your assets if someone threatens them?

Re: High property taxes are good

#374

Post by anonymousiam »

mdorazio wrote: post #280
anonymousiam wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 solved two problems at once. It forced a reduction in the out-of-control government spending, and it saved seniors from losing their houses. IMHO the only problem with Prop 13 was the "grandfathering" clause. The cuts should have been perpetual and across the board.

> It forced a reduction in the out-of-control government spending No, it didn't. California just kept adding taxes everywhere else to make up the difference and still had an annual deficit most of the 13 years I lived there. > It saved seniors from losing their houses Why are seniors magically allowed to be immune to basic market forces when no one else is?

I lived in California for most of my life and I remember the effects of Prop 13. Before Prop 13 the parks had recreation coaches, the libraries were open seven days a week, and schools had more than enough teachers. As is typical with any forced budget reduction, the changes were targeted for maximum effect on public perception.

The federal government went through a similar activity a few years later when Reagan slashed budgets. Everyone survived.

The state/federal budgets today are astronomically higher, even after accounting for inflation.

Below is a newspaper article I saved from over 30 years ago:

--

See Dick and Jane-and Simple Simon-Solve the School Budget

By ALICE J. GLASSER

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was a schoolhouse with a few children and a teacher. The children went to school to learn and the teacher went to teach. It was all very simple.

Then a few more kids came, so they hired another teacher. Now, with two teachers, they needed someone to supervise. So they hired a principal. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came, but just one more teacher.)

So the principal hired an assistant. But still more kids came, so they built another school and hired another principal. And now, with two principals, they needed someone to supervise. So they hired a superintendent, an assistant superintendent, a supervisor of Here and a supervisor of There. And since they needed a place for all these people, they built their own building and called themselves Unified. And they were happy until someone pointed out that there wasn't enough for them to do. So they hired a director of This and a director of That to develop pages and pages of things for them to do.

But there still was a problem. Unified had no one to implement these pages and pages of plans. So they hired coordinators of This and coordinators of That to decide which of the pages and pages of plans they should implement. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came but just a few more teachers.)

Now Unified needed a bigger building for all their people. So they bought a really big place. So big that they hired a few more Heres and Theres and Thises and Thats to fill up the space. And they were happy until they realized that they had run out of money. Their budget didn't balance. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came and an occasional teacher.)

So they hired a financial expert of This and a resource planner of That, and Unified came up with a Plan to balance the budget. They would break down all the walls between all the classrooms and once again have just one schoolroom. Only this time there would be 500 kids and one teacher. Of course, the teacher couldn't really teach and the kids couldn't really learn, but Unified was happy. Their budget was balanced. It was all very simple.

----

As chairperson of the Mar Vista School Site Council in West Los Angeles, Alice J. Glasser has been wrestling with Los Angeles Unified School District budgeting problems. By profession, she is a physician.

Update: I found it online here: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-08-me-1359-s...

Re: High property taxes are good

#375

Post by int_19h »

firloop wrote: post #166

This article doesn't provide any reasons why a property owner should want lower property taxes; why would you want to constrain prices and prevent speculation? I don't own any property myself and am sympathetic to the idea of raising property tax, but many arguments for LVT/raising property taxes don't paint a convincing argument for why property owners should vote against their self interests.

There isn't one. Land, and thus real estate, is an inherently limited pie, so any market disbalance like what we have right now can only be corrected by taking some of the pie away from those who have too much of it. The only argument you can make to the former is that it's fairer that way. If they don't find it persuasive at face value, you can remind that, once enough people are sufficiently desperate to reach for torches and pitchforks, property owners would lose a lot more that any such tax.

Re: High property taxes are good

#376

Post by igorkraw »

mgraf1 wrote: post #336
igorkraw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, either you are cruel to home owners who have capital or you are cruel to poor people. I know where my priorities would be. Or we could of course try to remove the cruelty completely by not using a market system to manage a natural monopoly (space in a community). But if you choose cruelty, at least be cruel to those that can choose to suffer as opposed that cannot really escape

How would a non market based system work for housing though? How do we decide who gets to live in places like Honolulu or Boulder?

That's the hard question. Once you have a community that decides to so it differently, you can use democratic consensus or voting (partial exampl Vienna, lots of counter-market public housing), but to get there you either need force or political will for places like boulder (think cutting off any subsidies for private home ownership and replacing then with mandates to have public bodies or cooperatives build dense-but nice housing in their own backyard. Corruption management would of course be an issue, but at least in my country construction is famously corrupt even in the private sector...). For Honolulu I don't know...but is that actually an issue?

Re: High property taxes are good

#377

Post by igorkraw »

vxNsr wrote: post #261
igorkraw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, either you are cruel to home owners who have capital or you are cruel to poor people. I know where my priorities would be. Or we could of course try to remove the cruelty completely by not using a market system to manage a natural monopoly (space in a community). But if you choose cruelty, at least be cruel to those that can choose to suffer as opposed that cannot really escape

You were just told that your plan will cause people to become homeless and your response is “I’ll worry about them when they’re homeless.” You’re a perfect politician: make plans with no thoughts to unintended consequences even when you’re warned about them.

They won't become homeless. They will have to move after selling and incredibly expensive house. As opposed to those who are homeless but are not receiving any tax benefits for not having a home, they will have capital to rent for a long time and/or buy a new one in a cheap area

Re: High property taxes are good

#378

Post by jpollock »

js2 wrote: post #11

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax > Property taxes discourage construction, maintenance, and repair because taxes increase with improvements. LVT is not based on how land is used. From https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/8/if-the-land-tax... > The problem is that the land tax component of a traditional property tax is too small to deter land speculation. Although property taxes vary from place…

Doesn't this presume that all property is taxed at a flat rate? Wouldn't the answer be to split the property based on what the city wants to accomplish? Then empty land can be taxed at a different rate to property with a residence on it (or whatever priority the city would apply).

Check out all the different tax rates that Wellington, New Zealand applies to a property [1]. I count 50!

[1] https://wellington.govt.nz/property-rates-and-building/rates...

Re: High property taxes are good

#379

Post by igorkraw »

cableshaft wrote: post #208
igorkraw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, either you are cruel to home owners who have capital or you are cruel to poor people. I know where my priorities would be. Or we could of course try to remove the cruelty completely by not using a market system to manage a natural monopoly (space in a community). But if you choose cruelty, at least be cruel to those that can choose to suffer as opposed that cannot really escape

> I mean, either you are cruel to home owners who have capital or you are cruel to poor people. False equivalence. There's no reason you have to be cruel to either. You can always build more housing or provide financial services to help poorer people buy homes. Or just, you know, lower the cost of homes so property taxes don't have to be astronomical and force older people out of their homes to begin with. If housing…

If you disincentivise individual ownership of expensive land and buildings, building dense housing becomes more profitable. Also, you can pay for social programs with the tax revenue.

Re: High property taxes are good

#380

Post by lolinder »

at_compile_time wrote: post #371
horsawlarway wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My strong suspicion is that this will completely fuck over the elderly and marginalized communities. It also requires property owners to do EXTENSIVE research and information gathering CONSTANTLY to ensure that the number they put down is reasonable. Many of them literally can't (ex: my 87 year old Neighbor Phylis doesn't care what her house is worth, because she plans to die in it, and isn't seeking to maximize util…

The poor widow argument against land value taxes has been a mainstay of the landowning class for over a century. [Winston Churchill had had enough of it back in 1909.]( https://web.archive.org/web/20010728120002/http://home.vicne... ) Guaranteeing that people can take up the same space that they did when the population was half its current level is a great way to ensure that future generations have nowhere to live.

The person you're replying to isn't arguing against land value taxes in the abstract, they're arguing against an implementation of LVTs that would force most homeowners to decide between overpaying taxes by a wide margin or suddenly losing their home.
Post reply on HN