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

Tax the Land

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 613 posts

Re: Tax the Land

#501

Post by imtringued »

inter_netuser wrote: post #218
CryptoPunk wrote: post #212

I've long advocated a land value tax. I would suggest that any reform of this nature, that eliminates private capture of economic rent, accompany one-time compensation to the parties that lose that economic rent, so in this case, compensation to make up for the loss in property value that a LVT would incur. The same should apply to any other repeal of rent-seeking institutions: anti-labor-competitive laws privileging…

I like Georgist taxes, but it's unclear that tax incidence will fall entirely on the rentier class. Important land is always unique, and therefore taxation would be have be incredibly dialed-in, no? 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. Have there been practical applications that show that's not…

The biggest problem with an LVT isn't when it's too low. Even a low LVT can prevent empty parking lots and abandoned properties. The problem with LVTs start when the LVT is too high as everyone abandons the land and nobody wants to acquire it. That is a real nightmare because of the extremely high valuations of land fueled by low land value and property taxes.

Transitioning to a steep LVT is difficult because the assumption is that the LVT drops the value of the land if the yearly tax payment is too high. A $1 million dollar plot of land isn't supposed to pay $50k in taxes. The payment you are willing to make is say $10k per year which means the value of the land drops to $200k. Making that jump is extremely difficult. It's only really viable if you started with the LVT from the beginning.

The reason why Germany can transition to an LVT is because the property taxes it charges are laughably low to begin with. Around 200€ to 1000€ per year. There is no plan to increase taxes to lower the value of land and put pressure to solving the housing problem.

Re: Tax the Land

#502

Post by imtringued »

belorn wrote: post #390
Manuel_D wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas,…

>There are two solutions to that problem. Governments could either make it easier to rent in the increasingly concentrated metro areas, or reverse the trend of increasingly concentrated metro areas.

That would require both negative interest rates and a land value tax because both are intended to neutralize liquidity preference. Negative interest rates prevent the build up of financial capital by overproducing "elites" which means people in rural areas will have those earning opportunities instead.

Re: Tax the Land

#503

Post by imtringued »

teakettle42 wrote: post #337
Manuel_D wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 const…

>There’s no housing shortage. There’s a limited supply in highly desirable locations because they’re highly desirable.

Actually, it is very easy to have enough housing for everyone and yet make it impossible for everyone who could live in that area to actually live there.

https://youtu.be/724ZR1Za9BU

Re: Tax the Land

#504

Post by imtringued »

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?

No post body was provided.

Re: Tax the Land

#505

Post by jjav »

RC_ITR wrote: post #469
jjav wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nearly no carrying costs for a first (LA), second (Palm Springs), third (Atherton), or fourth (Tahoe) home! You're still paying property tax on all those homes, and that propery tax goes up 2% every year. So "nearly no carrying costs" is not true.

Just to clarify some points: Yes, ofc You are still paying property tax, just way less than you would in nearly any other jurisdiction. It’s capped at 1% of total assessed value and that value can only go up 2% a year (i.e. way less than market). That was the meaning of the word “nearly.” EDIT: Just to contextualize this a bit, let’s assume those four houses were bought ten years ago for a total of $4m at the time. T…

A few data points:

> It’s capped at 1% of total assessed value

Sort of. The California property tax bill has many line items, one of which is "General tax rate". That's the one everyone talks about and it is 1% of the assessed value. However, all applicable jurisdictions can (and thus, will) add all kinds of add-on percentage fees to the property taxes and those are not subject to any limitations.

My property tax bill (California) which I just paid two weeks ago, was actually 1.4% of the assessed value.

> that value can only go up 2% a year (i.e. way less than market)

True on average over long term. Good to keep in mind though that it goes up 2% every year regardless of market. So when the market is up double percentages like 2020-2021, it only goes up 2%. But when the housing market crashes, it also goes up 2%. Which is fine, it's basically a damping function so that instead of having the taxes swing wildly up and down year to year, they just go steadily up.

Also be aware that the 2% increase is on the "general tax rate". The additional fees which are included in the property taxes, those have no cap on increase rates.

There have been many years when my property taxes have gone up quite a bit more than 2%.

I feel that because the housing market has been on such a long bull run, people have either forgotten, or are too young to have experienced, that housing markets can also crash hard. Having an increased zestimate value of your home is not actual wealth unless you sell it, and the valuation on paper can evaporate any moment when the next housing crash comes. I've been through three market crashes in my current house, two of which left me underwater for a few years.

Re: Tax the Land

#506

Post by eli_gottlieb »

pandaman wrote: post #451
ubercow13 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is ignoring the point: positive rights should not exist I’m confused by this statement. You don’t have an inalienable right to keep the area around your home exactly how you want it either. That’s a positive right and requires taking the rights of others, for example by enforcement of zoning laws that affect land owned by other people.

Positive right: somebody has to do something for me. Negative right: nobody must do something to me. The right of self-governance is a negative right. I can see how it can be confusing since you can re-phrase anything as either positive or a negative action e.g. "you must stop stealing my stuff so property is a positive right" and "you should not deny my need for healthcare ergo it's a negative right" so here is a tr…

1) Property is a positive right. It requires that the state enforce your property claim. This does not come free; it requires taxes, a police force, etc.

2) Property is delimited in scope. You own your parcel. You do not own the neighborhood, even partially. If someone else wants to put up dense housing on their parcels, their property, there is no negative-right violation against you. You are, at that point, just a rent-seeking highway robber.

Re: Tax the Land

#507

Post by azth »

chii wrote: post #276
azth wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone else mentioned, landlords provide a valuable service to the economy. They take on the risk of property ownership and maintenance etc. Now, if we look at why the three major religions prohibited money lending with interest, we can see where the true parasitic middlemen are: the money lenders.

i would not take religious prohibitions as any moral high ground. They also prohibit homosexual relationships. Money lending is as natural as money spending. It allows future improvements to be funded, and is critical to development of a society.

No post body was provided.

Re: Tax the Land

#508

Post by imtringued »

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…

> It could be personal bias, but a lot of LVT arguments seem to implicitly assume that more rental units is a good thing, which I don't really agree with.

This is a personal bias because you are trying to prevent other people from making their own decision on how they want to live. An uncharitable interpretation of your comment could be that you are forcing your will upon other people against their will.

The fact that an LVT increases personal freedom is usually ignored because personal freedom counts for nothing these days. I find it particularly amusing that we have this group of people called liberals wanting their fake freedom.

Re: Tax the Land

#509

Post by eli_gottlieb »

pandaman wrote: post #474
jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have the right to build apartments on the land I own." "I have the right to tell you what you can and can't build in my neighborhood." Which one is positive and which is negative?

Neither is positive, both are negative. Also the former does not exist in reality, in fact you often don't have a right to build anything in a township thus you have to get a permission from the local government for almost any construction (with some things implicitly permitted).

A "right" to stop other people from freely developing their property is absolutely a "positive right", or the whole dichotomy is incoherent.

Re: Tax the Land

#510

Post by imtringued »

jjav wrote: post #363
apendleton wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Zoning laws have to change as well to actually allow development of the land being taxed toward more productive ends. This is addressed to some extent, with the argument that zoning reforms are more practical because existing property owners are incentivized to support rather than fight zoning updates that allow more development, so they can fully maximize the ratio of their revenue against the tax. (“It turns N…

> existing property owners are incentivized to support rather than fight zoning updates that allow more development Regular people who own some land are not going to have the capital or skillset to tear down their house and build a highrise on the plot of land. So what a LVT does, is to force individual landowners to sell land off to giant developer corporations who do have the resources to make it happen. Consolidat…

>So what a LVT does, is to force individual landowners to sell land off to giant developer corporations who do have the resources to make it happen.

Now those giant corporations are finally paying their damn taxes.

Post reply on HN