[unshavedyak]

As an aside, i'd be curious how this strategy would work for long term farming. Ie 40+ year tree farms, where they own thousands (millions?) of acres which sit for 40 years, harvest, and then go back to being idle.

You could say that they can set the land to being a special tax code for tree farming or w/e. Which is something that already exists. I've been looking for a 10 acre plot (being picky on location, shape, etcetc) for a couple years now and most plots are already taxed at a lower rate due to this sort of tax code.

So my question/point is, people who are selling land (presumably as part of an investment) would be muddled in with people who are holding thousands of acres for tree farming. At least, in my experience.

What's the solution in this area? Be more restrictive on who gets the relaxed tax incentive? Perhaps not care, and assume wood prices will go up dramatically since tree farming is now much more expensive? Just curious on your thoughts

[Turing_Machine]

If I'm not mistaken, the Georgist model taxes the unimproved land value.

Your hypothetical tree farm would be taxed at the same rate as a neighboring parcel that didn't have a tree farm on it.

But you don't have to wait 40 years to realize a return on your investment if you don't want to... the sale price of the land would be going up every year, because the trees would be growing (a tree farm with 20 year old trees on it would be worth a lot more than a tree farm with 1 year old trees on it, yes?).

I myself am not fully persuaded by Georgism, but as far as I can see, there's no disincentive to things like tree farms under a Georgist model.

[dfxm12]

It's rare that demand is so high to live so close to such big tree farms, no? The value of that land is likely lower than you are picturing, and thus the tax as well. That said, implementations of LVT vary. Some have lower rates or exemptions for ag.

[unshavedyak]

Depends on the area, i imagine. In Washington, literally 100% of the lots i looked at were within a mile of hundred+ acres of tree land. A few big companies own a _ton_ of land in WA.

Also, i'm picturing the value of the land literally by what i'm trying to buy it as. Not sure how much more accurate it can get than that (at least, it's as practical as it can get. Since it's literally the sell price). These are pretty rural, fwiw. 5-10 acres, ranging from 150-250k. Heavily depends on distance to towns, interstates, etc.

Fun fact, a couple of the companies that own these lands i refer to also have a few (very limited) special gated communities. Lots that are ~20 acres, with a ton of HOA-like (CCRs) restrictions on preserving the trees. It looks a lot like living _in_ a park. Trails everywhere, etc. I was really close to getting one of those, but wetlands make a lot of purchases difficult here in WA.

[dublinben]

The value of farm land versus land in the city is several orders of magnitude different.

An average value for farmland might be something like $5000 / acre.

The average value for land in even a low cost of living city can be $2.5m / acre.