|
|
|
|
|
by stinkbeetle
70 days ago
|
|
Can you make the same arguments for holding land and activity that requires land? Or holding any other valuable, limited commodity vs activity that requires that commodity, copper for example? Investors in those things haven't caused an economic death spiral. It's considered shrewd and good business to buy and hold things that are seeing increasing demand. > This further decreases dollars available on the market to use in trade, further increasing their value. ... thereby reducing the amount of dollars required to trade a given amount of other things. Where does the spiral come from? |
|
But yes, sophisticated investors do make money on under utilized land. Parasitically.
And it is an economy damper. Under utilized land is poor economic optimization by definition. Not to mention the undertow it creates, in terms of unproductive scarcity, for people who actually need to utilize land - whether that is for homes or businesses.
The solution, as economist Henry George pointed out, is to tax land, but not the property on it. Tax the exlcusionalry holding of a limited resource, don't tax productive value created by people.
Taxing land and not property isn't as simple as taxing both, but it isn't rocket science either. There are lots of standards and practices, because distinguishing between the two is important for many reasons.
The irony of taxing property, the stuff that makes land productive, is that it is a wealth tax that hurts rich and poor alike. A poor person, unemployed, who spends their time bereft of reliable income improving their own home will now be taxed on the value added - every year for the rest of their lives or until they sell or lose their home. That is a very perverse situation.
So yes, the taxation situation that subsidizes under utilized property, which is also parasitically rewarded by gains in value far exceeding the lower taxes they pay (for having no development to tax), is continually damaging the economy.