Why a land-value tax is inevitable • Hacker News Board

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#61

Post by CyberDildonics » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

DeonPenny wrote: post #45

This makes a lot of unsubstantiated claims. Like the bond market is saturated that seems the opposite of true. This also claims theres been a high inflation but that doesn't seem to be true either based on any metric. I think the one thing is clear and I agree with is taxes increases capital outflow. But my biggest issue is with the central premise that is taken at face value. That the government needs more money. I…

I think you mean unsubstantiated. True or not, the claims you are making are also unsubstantiated.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#62

Post by thebradbain » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #37

mr_cyborg wrote: post #16

I’m struggling to envision how this would impact homeowners differently than the current property tax paradigm. If I have a house and the value of the property goes up, my property taxes increase. If I were to sell a house at market rate, theoretically it would be reflective of what rate it was being taxed at. How would this same situation play out with a land-value tax?

Perversely, if it was based on what the value of the property would be without any building on it, in lots of popular areas it would be more than the cost of the property tax because people will pay a premium for land where they can build what they want if the area is popular. So I guess it can't be that way, as it would piss a lot of people off.

LVT, in its most pure form, isn’t based on any improvements (or lack thereof) to the land — the tax would be based purely based on the land itself, as if the home were NOT there.

Most likely, it would be heavily based on zoning, neighborhood, and proximity to jobs and transit. Take Los Angeles, for example. I would imagine you could actually see taxes in predominantly SFH enclaves like Calabasas or Malibu 1hr+ from job centers go _down_ while taxes on similar single family homes in West Hollywood or Beverly Hills, being much more incorporated into the urban framework of LA, would go up.

Wealthy people can still have their expansive estates elsewhere, but the incentive is to move them off of land that would have a better use serving more people: just as it doesn’t make too much sense for the Empire State Building to be built in Aspen, CO, it doesn’t make much sense for a single-family, detached vacation home with a white picket fence and yard to be built in the financial district of Manhattan.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#63

Post by spenczar5 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

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.

Carbon taxes don't seem simple, to me. Measuring the carbon cost of many things seems really hard. What's the carbon tax rate of income from a downtown parking lot? How do you even reason about that?

(the others, sure, much simpler)

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#64

Post by bjarneh » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

There are so many ways to tax the wealthy that would "work". But as long as the rich have way more influence on how society is organized than than the poor or middle class, it's just very difficult to do anything about it.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#65

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #25

> The LVT is not the same as a property tax, as it does not punish those who put the land to use; it taxes only the land, not the structure built on top of it. This sounds regressive. So someone with a bungalow on their property pays the same tax as someone with a 40 story apartment building?

[deleted]

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#66

Post by Ericson2314 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #52

Ericson2314 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only sounds that we because there is so much yeoman farmer -> suburban everyman stuff in our heads. The land is our collective inheritence, so someone with 1 story bungalow on highly desireable land is actually extremely selfish and decedent in their misuse of the commons. To get less moral and more mathematical, developers can lessen their tax only to the extent that the flood the market with floors pace, deval…

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.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#67

Post by chongli » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #25

> The LVT is not the same as a property tax, as it does not punish those who put the land to use; it taxes only the land, not the structure built on top of it. This sounds regressive. So someone with a bungalow on their property pays the same tax as someone with a 40 story apartment building?

Another way to put it: the person who owns a vacant lot in Manhattan (worth many millions) pays the same tax as the person who owns an equivalent lot in Manhattan with an apartment building built on it. They would also pay the same tax as the person who owns that same lot with a bungalow sitting on it.

It's not regressive at all. You pay tax based on the value of the land. If you're not utilizing the full value of the land (by leaving it vacant or otherwise under built compared to the demand) then you're going to pay more in taxes than you get out of it. The whole purpose of LVT is to nudge you toward either improving the land so you can utilize its value or sell it to someone who will.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#68

Post by ichbinwiederda » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

I detest property taxes. What ends up happening is that people who are on the brink of poverty keep losing their (inherited) land because the government deems it an income generating asset, even though it is not (it's either their home or some dilapidated piece of land without much actual income generation prospects). Often they also get screwed on the selling because they are under pressure and because they are not experienced in selling property, and end up losing money in the process. So it's like crabs on the brim of the bucket being kicked back to the bottom.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#69

Post by Ericson2314 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

spenczar5 wrote: post #63

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.

Carbon taxes don't seem simple, to me. Measuring the carbon cost of many things seems really hard. What's the carbon tax rate of income from a downtown parking lot? How do you even reason about that? (the others, sure, much simpler)

Yes, Carbon tax is the least simple, but at least the others free up the carbon tax alone from being at all equitable. That helps.

Re: Why a land-value tax is inevitable

#70

Post by notahacker » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

mr_cyborg wrote: post #16

I’m struggling to envision how this would impact homeowners differently than the current property tax paradigm. If I have a house and the value of the property goes up, my property taxes increase. If I were to sell a house at market rate, theoretically it would be reflective of what rate it was being taxed at. How would this same situation play out with a land-value tax?

Theoretically with an LVT, if the value of the property goes up because you restore and extend it or convert it into a dozen flats the tax stays the same (but still increases if the value increases because youre lucky enough get a good school and a light rail station in the area as the result of others' actions). In practice, it's somewhat difficult to separate the two which is why property taxes are more common (also because the multistorey apartment block built on similarly valued land to the house next door has a lot more people with the ability to pay and the expectation of having local services paid for)

The other difference is that proponents of LVT often argue it should replace other taxes like income tax. But regardless of theoretical efficiency criteria, it's a lot easier to persuade people that a large fixed portion of their earnings are the government's share than give them an enormous bill for the valuable land their house sits on and tell them if they're not earning enough to afford it they can always move (as long as they can find a buyer...). Which is why LVT has been 'inevitable' since before the Industrial Revolution without it being very widely experimented with