23 ms·

> Land is the exception because people don't make it themselves ... People don't make the land but they do make the value of the land. Even if that just consis

> Land is the exception because people don't make it themselves ... People don't make the land but they do make the value of the land. Even if that just consists of recognizing the potential in what is already there. LVT does nothing to distinguish between value resulting from the actions of the owner—apart from a very limited set of formally recognized "improvements", mainly permanent structures—and value resulting from the actions of others. And even if part of the "unimproved" value does result from others' actions, these others are not, in general, the ones receiving the tax.

lmm 7y ago
> LVT does nothing to distinguish between value resulting from the actions of the owner—apart from a very limited set of formally recognized "improvements", mainly permanent structures—and value resulting from the actions of others. And even if part of the "unimproved" value does result from others' actions, these others are not, in general, the ones receiving the tax. The same is true of the existing system - currently owners pocket all of the value increase despite the vast majority of it being nothing to do with them. LVT is a recognition that most of the value of land comes from the actions of others - not just a handful of immediate neighbours but the whole surrounding community (e.g. most of the value of land in a given city gets its value from the entirety of that city) - and so should rightfully go to an organisation that represents that community as a whole.
- nybble41 7y ago
  > currently owners pocket all of the value increase Except for the property taxes and local sales taxes which pay for all these things supposedly contributing "unearned" value to the land... and which over time add up to more than the increase in land value. > despite the vast majority of it being nothing to do with them > to an organisation that represents that community as a whole [citation needed x 2] LVT eliminates the financial incentive to take personal or collective private action to improve the community as a whole. Rather than increasing the value of your property (and your neighbours') your only reward is to be saddled with additional taxes above and beyond the cost of the improvements. The LVT model essentially assumes that the only source of community-level improvements worthy of remuneration is the government. Which is obviously nonsense. If I contribute to the community at my own expense, the benefits accrue not to me but to the government—which may represent "us" in a vague, manipulative sense but certainly doesn't represent me—to be spent more often than not on things I explicitly do not want and which are contrary to my own interests. Governments love to act as though they enjoy an agent/principal relationship with their constituents but neglect the fact that an agent has a individual duty to each principal, not just the majority position. It's an inherent conflict of interest to serve multiple principals with conflicting goals. Of course, property taxes have a similar issue, but at least they don't have an explicit goal of negating all profit to the property owner; you don't get the full benefit of contributed improvements but you do get the majority of it.
  - lmm 7y ago
    > The LVT model essentially assumes that the only source of community-level improvements worthy of remuneration is the government. Which is obviously nonsense. Any organisation that purported to represent the community well enough to make community-level improvements (which will almost inevitably make things worse for some people even if they're a huge gain for the community as a whole), like "we should demolish these buildings to put a rail line in" or "should this area be a park or a factory", would have to incorporate the same feedback mechanisms and so on that would make it a de facto government. If you're doing something that really improves the community as a whole, under LVT the community government should be willing to fund it, since they'll get back all the value. Indeed they have an incentive to seek out ways to improve the community and encourage neighbourhoods to improve themselves, unlike today. > Governments love to act as though they enjoy an agent/principal relationship with their constituents but neglect the fact that an agent has a individual duty to each principal, not just the majority position. It's an inherent conflict of interest to serve multiple principals with conflicting goals. Of course it is. Doing anything on a community scale is inherently difficult, and there will inherently be winners and losers. LVT actually helps even that out though - the gains of community-scale improvements accrue to the government of the community as a whole, but by the same token they also bear the cost of any local deteriorations. > Of course, property taxes have a similar issue, but at least they don't have an explicit goal of negating all profit to the property owner; you don't get the full benefit of contributed improvements but you do get the majority of it. Property taxes are a completely backwards way to approach this kind of thing, because they punish the owner for the one kind of community improvement that they actually fully control and spend their own money on. Under LVT you keep the full value of your buildings, landscaping and so on (which are the result of your own toil); you pay taxes on the value of the unimproved land, which is a function of the community as a whole rather than your individual efforts.

lmm 7y ago

> LVT does nothing to distinguish between value resulting from the actions of the owner—apart from a very limited set of formally recognized "improvements", mainly permanent structures—and value resulting from the actions of others. And even if part of the "unimproved" value does result from others' actions, these others are not, in general, the ones receiving the tax. The same is true of the existing system - currently owners pocket all of the value increase despite the vast majority of it being nothing to do with them. LVT is a recognition that most of the value of land comes from the actions of others - not just a handful of immediate neighbours but the whole surrounding community (e.g. most of the value of land in a given city gets its value from the entirety of that city) - and so should rightfully go to an organisation that represents that community as a whole.

nybble41 7y ago
> currently owners pocket all of the value increase Except for the property taxes and local sales taxes which pay for all these things supposedly contributing "unearned" value to the land... and which over time add up to more than the increase in land value. > despite the vast majority of it being nothing to do with them > to an organisation that represents that community as a whole [citation needed x 2] LVT eliminates the financial incentive to take personal or collective private action to improve the community as a whole. Rather than increasing the value of your property (and your neighbours') your only reward is to be saddled with additional taxes above and beyond the cost of the improvements. The LVT model essentially assumes that the only source of community-level improvements worthy of remuneration is the government. Which is obviously nonsense. If I contribute to the community at my own expense, the benefits accrue not to me but to the government—which may represent "us" in a vague, manipulative sense but certainly doesn't represent me—to be spent more often than not on things I explicitly do not want and which are contrary to my own interests. Governments love to act as though they enjoy an agent/principal relationship with their constituents but neglect the fact that an agent has a individual duty to each principal, not just the majority position. It's an inherent conflict of interest to serve multiple principals with conflicting goals. Of course, property taxes have a similar issue, but at least they don't have an explicit goal of negating all profit to the property owner; you don't get the full benefit of contributed improvements but you do get the majority of it.
- lmm 7y ago
  > The LVT model essentially assumes that the only source of community-level improvements worthy of remuneration is the government. Which is obviously nonsense. Any organisation that purported to represent the community well enough to make community-level improvements (which will almost inevitably make things worse for some people even if they're a huge gain for the community as a whole), like "we should demolish these buildings to put a rail line in" or "should this area be a park or a factory", would have to incorporate the same feedback mechanisms and so on that would make it a de facto government. If you're doing something that really improves the community as a whole, under LVT the community government should be willing to fund it, since they'll get back all the value. Indeed they have an incentive to seek out ways to improve the community and encourage neighbourhoods to improve themselves, unlike today. > Governments love to act as though they enjoy an agent/principal relationship with their constituents but neglect the fact that an agent has a individual duty to each principal, not just the majority position. It's an inherent conflict of interest to serve multiple principals with conflicting goals. Of course it is. Doing anything on a community scale is inherently difficult, and there will inherently be winners and losers. LVT actually helps even that out though - the gains of community-scale improvements accrue to the government of the community as a whole, but by the same token they also bear the cost of any local deteriorations. > Of course, property taxes have a similar issue, but at least they don't have an explicit goal of negating all profit to the property owner; you don't get the full benefit of contributed improvements but you do get the majority of it. Property taxes are a completely backwards way to approach this kind of thing, because they punish the owner for the one kind of community improvement that they actually fully control and spend their own money on. Under LVT you keep the full value of your buildings, landscaping and so on (which are the result of your own toil); you pay taxes on the value of the unimproved land, which is a function of the community as a whole rather than your individual efforts.