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rodonn | 2 years ago

They key is that it is a tax on the value of the land not the size, so large plots of land would face a much smaller tax per acre compared to prime real estate in a city.

It is true that a LVT will have a larger percentage impact on the market value of undeveloped land who bought land for speculation without any investments in making the land more valuable. This will especially affect people who bought up lots of land speculating on the value going up. This includes people who bought up lots of land for farm/lumber/mining, but also people who buy up urban plots and keep them as a flat land parking lot while waiting for the value to go up.

Any change in taxes will have some winners and some losers. For example an increase in traditional property taxes hurts anyone who bought expensive houses. An sales tax/consumption taxes hurts anyone who saved up financial assets. An increase in income taxes hurts people who invested in education to increase their labor value.

The question is which is the least unfair way to tax to meet the needs of society. Most of those other taxes will actively discourage valuable investments that make society as a whole more prosperous. Property taxes discourage building. Wealth taxes discourage saving. Income taxes discourage earning and investment towards future earning. In contrast a tax on land value, doesn't cause there to be any less land. It does discourage speculation in future increases in land value, but that speculation is mostly zero sum (it might make the individual speculator richer, but doesn't increase the wealth of society as a whole).

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TuringNYC|2 years ago

> They key is that it is a tax on the value of the land not the size

Yes, but you could also say:

"They key is that it is a tax on the relationships between specific landowners and the local representatives and lobby dollars spent"