|
|
|
|
|
|
by conanbatt
2893 days ago
|
|
|
Very interesting read! I disagree intuitively with his "Rebuttals". 1- he claims its hard to know the value of land. It is not: there is a big market for land and you can absolutely appraise it. 2- He claims they are regressive, and puts two examples: a young man in a mcmansion vs an old man in a bungalow. Well, the old man is taking more space than the young man. It is most obvious in a place like the bay area where 6 figure salary people live with 2+ roomates while old timers have a single family home and pay reduced prop taxes.
His second argument is that old people that have homes would be hit most by this tax, and that is bad. I say hell no: they have a house they can sell. Why does a 19 year-old minimumn wage worker pay taxes to subsidize an old person that has a home? 3- Ideologically he introduced also the issue with the capacity to pay. Of course taxes have to be payable and counter-cyclical, but that is not fixed by a sales tax or VAT which is super cyclical. Second, the payable part implies that taxes have to be levied based on capacity, not on value. So its ok to not tax a poor robber, but it is ok to tax a rich productive person. This ideology seeps into the previous argument of "old people dont produce, so they shouldnt pay taxes, while young renters do produce and should pay taxes". |
|
|
1) The article repeatedly leans on the concept that the municipal tax itself is insignificant and unimportant, that it's ability to grow or shrink is bounded, and that implementing an LVT will raise taxes overall.
An LVT is supposed to supplant other forms of tax - you aren't supposed to be paying income tax, school tax, etc. in addition to it. The increased property tax should be a wash at the individual level unless you're making poor use of land.
His own priors indicate that municipal taxation is not LVT-like, but he claims that it is.
2) He claims that the rich won't care about the tax increase (so why not increase revenue there?) but that seniors that are land-rich but wealth poor will get liquidated.
He doesn't bother to think about what this means - land values decrease as non-productive land is returned to the market. He claims renters will get squeezed stating that there's only housing supply where there are profits. Sure, but how would it look? Would we be out popping medium size detached dwellings in suburbs that create net-negative income for cities in the long term (but are profitable for developers and speculators), or would it favour densification in areas already served by infrastructure? No argument is provided.
Basically the key point made that is decently supported is "there will be pain during a transition between the two systems", but I don't think anyone believes otherwise.