If I'm meant to treat a rise in property tax in response to positive change in value as a disincentive to improvement, what difference how the tax increase is computed? It isn't even clear LVT does not create a massive incentive to consolidation, as property tax increasing without connection to improvement kicks off a "Red Queen's race" where anyone unable to capture revenue from improvement, or unable to increase that capture, ends up facing a permanent structural bar to any ownership. It seems as though designed to annihilate even any possibility of an American-style middle class, in favor of an ever narrowing landlord gerousia enriching itself through rent farming.
Well, it makes sense if you hope to be among the winners. But I don't see any Georgists here seeming very interested in addressing anything like that, just a couple who handwaved past it. [1] I'm not an economist, though, nor even very smart. I'm just a Baltimore homeowner who's heard a time or two before of such alternative tax scams. I mean schemes.
[1] And the ones responding at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44826168, who seem thus far to present one argument each and retire discouraged by its failure. One hopes someone might come along willing to actually espouse this heterodoxy, rather than just try to feel "based" for namedropping around it.
An LVT specifically targets land rents, yes including imputed rents. Implied is an end to income and sales tax. The effects of this will be to discourage things like a surface parking lot or low rise motel in the dense part of a city.
Suburbs and rural areas nobody really cares about.
I'm very confused about the idea that taxing land ownership more heavily will somehow lead to more consolidation and _favor_ landlords, and simultaneously harm existing homeowners. It's just incoherent. Perhaps I too am not smart.
throwanem|6 months ago
Well, it makes sense if you hope to be among the winners. But I don't see any Georgists here seeming very interested in addressing anything like that, just a couple who handwaved past it. [1] I'm not an economist, though, nor even very smart. I'm just a Baltimore homeowner who's heard a time or two before of such alternative tax scams. I mean schemes.
[1] And the ones responding at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44826168, who seem thus far to present one argument each and retire discouraged by its failure. One hopes someone might come along willing to actually espouse this heterodoxy, rather than just try to feel "based" for namedropping around it.
sagarm|6 months ago
Suburbs and rural areas nobody really cares about.
I'm very confused about the idea that taxing land ownership more heavily will somehow lead to more consolidation and _favor_ landlords, and simultaneously harm existing homeowners. It's just incoherent. Perhaps I too am not smart.