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So what if we apply that rule to poor and middle income people? Are you suddenly interested in taxing those people to get them out so that someone with more ca

So what if we apply that rule to poor and middle income people? Are you suddenly interested in taxing those people to get them out so that someone with more cash can do something better with their land? What about people with just enough land to have an unsustainable tax rate but not enough land for it to be immediately useful for development? People with older homes in cities fall into this category frequently. How much revenue is this worth for the government after land is sold and properties destroyed to make way for new versus if they had just raised tax on income? This assumes there is even a willing buyer.

vostok 10y ago
>People with older homes in cities fall into this category frequently. Would this not be a good example of just the sort of thing that would be fixed by this tax? There are many people in places like San Francisco and Manhattan that are holding on to single family homes. This reduces the amount of housing that is available and increases rents. It seems fairly reasonable that these people should pay for the enormous resource usage.
- onetimeusename 10y ago
  I don't see how a tax resolves that situation, if the situation indeed needs resolving. The tax could just as well cause a large apartment with many renters to be unsustainable and become replaced with a smaller apartment with very high rents to cover the cost. If land can be used to build an apartment, that is one issue, but another issue is using a tax policy to try to change its ownership or purpose. I am more strongly opposed to the latter.
chongli 10y ago
Raising tax on income is regressive by its very nature. The wealthiest people in our society pay almost no income tax at all and raising it would not affect them. If an old couple is barely scraping by on a pension but sitting on a property worth millions that could be converted to an apartment housing hundreds of people, why shouldn't they be encouraged to sell or at the very least rent? In their present state they are a net drain on society, paying no income taxes and squeezing everybody else into less available land. Land value taxes[0] are the answer to this mess. [0] http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-val...

vostok 10y ago

>People with older homes in cities fall into this category frequently. Would this not be a good example of just the sort of thing that would be fixed by this tax? There are many people in places like San Francisco and Manhattan that are holding on to single family homes. This reduces the amount of housing that is available and increases rents. It seems fairly reasonable that these people should pay for the enormous resource usage.

onetimeusename 10y ago
I don't see how a tax resolves that situation, if the situation indeed needs resolving. The tax could just as well cause a large apartment with many renters to be unsustainable and become replaced with a smaller apartment with very high rents to cover the cost. If land can be used to build an apartment, that is one issue, but another issue is using a tax policy to try to change its ownership or purpose. I am more strongly opposed to the latter.

chongli 10y ago

Raising tax on income is regressive by its very nature. The wealthiest people in our society pay almost no income tax at all and raising it would not affect them. If an old couple is barely scraping by on a pension but sitting on a property worth millions that could be converted to an apartment housing hundreds of people, why shouldn't they be encouraged to sell or at the very least rent? In their present state they are a net drain on society, paying no income taxes and squeezing everybody else into less available land. Land value taxes[0] are the answer to this mess. [0] http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-val...