Generally, high taxes on anything are bad. Taxation facilitates a transfer of assets from the productive sector to the non-productive sector, e.g., from the homeowner to the government. The recipient then uses the money to further their plans without regard to the taxpayer. It has always been that way. Using econo-speak doesn't make it any less true. Looking at cities like NYC, eliminating rent control would do more for the housing market than raising property taxes.
High property taxes are good
571–580 of 620 posts
Re: High property taxes are good
#572Earlier 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 usual solution to that is a property tax deferral to death or transfer. Phylis would pay nothing, but her estate would be required to. People will revolt anyway. For instance, in California they revolted when we attempted to remove Prop 13 for businesses.
Eliminating intergenerational wealth transfer among the middle class is an excellent way for the rentier class to maintain a more pliant populace.
Re: High property taxes are good
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be more clear. Depending on the location, those flat parking lots can be pulling in 1+ million per year in profit. That doesn’t mean building a multi level parking garage in that same space is actually a good investment because demand isn’t unlimited. What you see as wasted space can therefore actually be a highly efficient business.
The business has maybe 30 spaces at $20/day. If we assume some people use hourly rates but most use daily lets say each parking space makes $25/day for $750/day. That works out to $273,750 before expenses. To get $1 million you’d need over 100 spaces which is quite a massive plot of land for the downtown core of a city.
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Re: High property taxes are good
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hypothetically, let's say I owned a modest home. Then, what if a very wealthy person who grew up in that home wanted to buy it for a grand sum of money? In that case, I'd be torn between revaluing my house to a huge amount (that no one except this one person would be willing to pay) and being forced to sell. It's an interesting scenario, because that wealthy person could lower their valuation almost immediately after…
C'mon, even setting aside the fact that the victim here walks away with a giant pile of money, there are countless ways to address this extremely unusual special-case scenario. For instance, you could be free to decline to sell as long as your declared valuation was >= the local neighborhood average.
> C'mon, even setting aside the fact that the victim here walks away with a giant pile of money
Money is a medium of exchange. There are items that are literally not for sale, and the excuse of "but they got money!!!!" is completely unacceptable as a replacement.
How are you going to value the writing on the walls of the home my neighbor from her now-deceased son?
How are you going to value the 6 (six!) graves of the dogs she's buried in her back yard, Each with a custom stone statue.
How are you going to value that she's memorized her current home layout, so that large cataract in her right eye doesn't bug her as much when she's in the familiar layout?
How do you value the extra time and expense it would take her to find a new home, given she's wheelchair bound?
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and your "new plan" is devolving into trying to add all sort of extra conditions and rules around this - which gets us right back to: implement this and people will literally try to kill you.
Re: High property taxes are good
#575Earlier 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…
> My strong suspicion is that this will completely fuck over the elderly and marginalized communities. People who are hoarding a huge house in a desirable area to do nothing but slowly die in need to be fucked over. They're worse than speculators. > 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 utili…
No post body was provided.
Re: High property taxes are good
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be more clear. Depending on the location, those flat parking lots can be pulling in 1+ million per year in profit. That doesn’t mean building a multi level parking garage in that same space is actually a good investment because demand isn’t unlimited. What you see as wasted space can therefore actually be a highly efficient business.
The business has maybe 30 spaces at $20/day. If we assume some people use hourly rates but most use daily lets say each parking space makes $25/day for $750/day. That works out to $273,750 before expenses. To get $1 million you’d need over 100 spaces which is quite a massive plot of land for the downtown core of a city.
~115 parking spaces can fit on a normal 1-acre paved, marked parking lot. You can double that when cars park in long rows at the cost of having attendants.
You can unquestionably have smaller lots, but it’s hardly a massive plot of land.
Re: High property taxes are good
#577Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the idea with a land value tax is you tax the value of the land, and not any property on it. So it's not just improvements added in a year, but any improvements residing on the property. If the land is worth $100, and your house is worth $200-- it's worth $300 to you. But a LVT should just be taxing that $100.
There are two kinds of improvements, those of the land itself (like a new road or a water pipe etc) and those like houses or businesses. LVT directly includes the former, as they would be included in anyone's assessment of value (whether that be a government assessor or the owner). However, the value of the land is also indirectly linked to the improvements like houses. If you make a piece of land more productive by…
I think you're missing my point. We're in a subthread where you floated the idea of a bidding-based scheme as a way to set LVT land values.
If you set the tax rate by having owners bid a price they're bound to sell their property for... that's going to include improvements like dwellings, since the owner can't take their dwelling with them and doesn't want to just sell the property with their dwelling for the land value alone.
In turn, this fails at setting the rate for a LVT, because it captures the value of improvements like houses in the taxed amount.
Re: High property taxes are good
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
That can be right in the short term, but in the long term you'd expect developers to stay out of the market, so how is it that Chicago has a "glut of high quality housing at very low prices"?
I don't think this statement is true because in high cost areas developers still don't develop because higher price also mean higher land costs. On top of that places like NY have lower taxes but not enough development over a long term scale. This taxes codes don't change on a whim. There is also a factor of zoning when it comes to build there very well might not be any land to develop near a city because it's all sa…
In NYC property taxes are almost certainly the least relevant issue. In NYC there is a tremendous amount of political friction around new high-rise construction.
Re: High property taxes are good
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
C'mon, even setting aside the fact that the victim here walks away with a giant pile of money, there are countless ways to address this extremely unusual special-case scenario. For instance, you could be free to decline to sell as long as your declared valuation was >= the local neighborhood average.
> C'mon, even setting aside the fact that the victim here walks away with a giant pile of money Money is a medium of exchange. There are items that are literally not for sale, and the excuse of "but they got money!!!!" is completely unacceptable as a replacement. How are you going to value the writing on the walls of the home my neighbor from her now-deceased son? How are you going to value the 6 (six!) graves of the…
Huh? In the scenario you describe, someone is paying below the neighborhood average in property tax, so someone makes an offer on their property, and they decline by raising their declared valuation to match the neighborhood average. Then they stay in their house and pay their fair share of property tax.
Re: High property taxes are good
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
The usual solution to that is a property tax deferral to death or transfer. Phylis would pay nothing, but her estate would be required to. People will revolt anyway. For instance, in California they revolted when we attempted to remove Prop 13 for businesses.
Eliminating intergenerational wealth transfer among the middle class is an excellent way for the rentier class to maintain a more pliant populace.
Just a casual middle class millionaire renting out my home. Not one of those rentier class assholes.