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Why should different rules apply to foreigners in this context? An American billionaire buying a few condos and keeping them empty has the exact same effect as

Why should different rules apply to foreigners in this context? An American billionaire buying a few condos and keeping them empty has the exact same effect as a Chinese billionaire doing so. Rules around vacant homes are good, though, and I strongly support them.

rb808 7y ago
At least an American billionaire pays some American taxes. If a foreign speculator makes a lot of money they aren't even paying any income or capital gains taxes here.
- klipt 7y ago
  > if a foreign speculator makes a lot of money they aren't even paying any income or capital gains taxes here. False, even if you're not US resident, you still have to file non-resident tax returns and pay taxes on all US sourced income. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonresident-aliens-source-of-income https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonr... > A nonresident alien (NRA) usually is subject to U.S. income tax only on U.S. source income.
- tareqak 7y ago
  An vacancy tax deals with both domestic and foreign buyers keeping homes unoccupied. Here is the link to the city of Vancouver’s Empty Home Tax: https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-tax.aspx https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-t... .
- amenod 7y ago
  The cynic in me would correct you that neither pays much taxes.
- asdfadsfgfdda 7y ago
  They are still paying plenty in property tax. From the city's perspective, you couldn't ask for a better resident. Somebody who pays full property tax and consumes almost no services (schools, police, etc).
  - finaliteration 7y ago
    But they also don’t participate in the local economy and can just blindly vote against anything that impacts their bottom line (e.g. tax increases) rather than having to interact with and see the impact on people who actually live and work there whose lives are impacted by local and regional politics.
  - zapita 7y ago
    They often pay very little property tax, thanks to California prop 13. Long-time property owners are incentivized to just ride the real estate boom with a vacant building that costs them nothing. The city gets almost no tax revenue, and the neighborhood is crippled in its development. As a bonus those property owners are politically active and fight zoning reform and development/transit projects to protect aforementioned real estate boom.
  - s0rce 7y ago
    Why is the city's perspective purely financial? Shouldn't it be driven by the needs of the residents? City residents need housing and the the local business need inhabitants. If you extend your "city" to the limit it would just be a giant physical investment with buildings no one lives in. The city, basically just an investment company would have a lot of money from the taxes and providing minimal services but until that happens the actual residents should drive the policies, in my opinion.
  - hello_moto 7y ago
    They drive artificial demands which increases the overall price. At the end of the day, it's not good for the local residents. It's not as simple as "they're not here thus they're not consuming any services". The resulting effect of sky-high property cost ripples to everything else below it (jobs, transportation, etc).
  - compiler-guy 7y ago
    They do consume one thing: housing stock that would otherwise be available to residents. Whether or not that outweighs the benefits of paying taxes but not consuming city services is a different issue.
  - 7y ago
- damnyou 7y ago
  American billionaires dont pay much taxes either. The solution to this is to fix the tax code, not retreat further into nationalism.
  - GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
    >not retreat further into nationalism God forbid we feel any natural affinity towards our fellow countrymen. Any alternative is so artificial and forced.
    - pmoriarty 7y ago
      "God forbid we feel any natural affinity towards our fellow countrymen" Such an affinity is not "natural" because no one is born with any sort of innate ability to distinguish among nationalities, much less feel any affinity towards certain nationalities. Any such distinctions and feelings are taught through indoctrination such as nationalistic rituals, media, and the attitudes of those around you. A nationality is a legal fiction which changes absolutely nothing about who a person really is or what they do. Nationalism and group affiliation have been the causes of some of the worst atrocities in history, so we should be very wary of encouraging either. Regardless of their nationality, I personally feel much more affinity with someone who is helping others over one who is hurting others.
      - GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
        I say national but I mean local as opposed to global. My town is more important than my county which is more important than my state, etc. my philosophy also extends to animals and plants, meaning it’s not a human-centric view but biocentric. It’s doesn’t seem natural to care less about local Bird/insect populations and local ecosystems as much as human poverty on the other side of the planet.
      - homonculus1 7y ago
        There is a good and perfectly natural reason to favor people from our own country: they have to live under the same system as us. They have skin in the game on our team. Someone acting in our country but operating out of a different one can exploit the difference in rules to our detriment (e.g. a Chinese company competing in Western markets, but with the finger of state backing pushing on the scales). On a large enough scale it's a threat to democracy etc. if our group decides that groups no longer matter, and another group doesn't. You can iteratively, conservatively try to approach an equilibrium where borders and divisions no longer matter and all of humanity joins together in enlightenment. That seems to be the general direction we're going and it's a good thing. What you can't do is unilaterally make a cooperative system out of a competitive one. If you go all at once by yourself you just get killed. Nationality is a big (and in some cases literal) Chesterton's Fence. It is somewhat arbitrary, but that doesn't make it meaningless.
davidw 7y ago
Everyone gets to feel good if they can blame "the wealthy foreigners" rather than look at their own crappy housing policies, such as the rampant NIMBYism and huge market distortion from Prop 13. Faceless "wealthy foreigners" are easier to dislike than their own neighbors who show up at planning commission meetings to rant about someone adding an extra bedroom to their home (this is an actual thing I read about in San Francisco).
- sidlls 7y ago
  Where I live "wealthy homeowners" are the NIMBYs. They suddenly appear out of nowhere to argue in city council meetings against more housing, then leave their homes empty more than half the year (or all year). That most of them are also foreign is incidental: it'd be just as bad if it were Americans doing this.
  - davidw 7y ago
    Foreigners cannot vote, so it seems odd that the city council would pay that much attention to them. My point is that there's a small but persistent current of thought regarding the housing crisis that wants to pin the blame on "wealthy foreigners buying up all our real estate", as sort of an 'out' for taking a good, hard look at local housing policies.
GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
There’s a lot of money in real estate. It’s better staying in the country than going to Chinese firms. If it makes no difference to you, why not favor your own country?
- damnyou 7y ago
  Because I am a committed internationalist and believe that national borders are the greatest moral atrocity that exists today.
  - GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
    Thinking nationalism is about borders and not about loving your own people. We have a limited amount of love and attention to spread. Focusing that energy externally rather than internally causes neglect on your own people, like the homeless in the US. It’s like choosing where to put your skill points at the beginning of an RPG. Even acting like it’s morally superior when it’s just an inefficient form of welfare. It’s a bunch of feel good. I say “national” but I don’t really care about Florida or NY way over here in California.
  - samferguson 7y ago
    > national borders are the greatest moral atrocity that exists today I think this a fairly superficial claim. I agree that there are reasons to question the moral basis of national borders (why should someone be given additional rights based on where they were born?) but there are immense practical benefits that arise from having national borders. From a utilitarian perspective, these practical benefits likely outweigh the costs. In the case of placing additional taxes and restrictions on foreign investment in real estate - yes, this may restrict the freedom of foreigners, but the overall benefit of these laws could be sufficient moral justification.
  - waynecochran 7y ago
    Kim Jon-Un will downvote you.
- metalliqaz 7y ago
hello_moto 7y ago
> An American billionaire buying a few condos and keeping them empty has the exact same effect as a Chinese billionaire doing so. There are more nuances to this. Chinese millionaires and billionaires don't care about the sales price. They do it to diversify their portfolio to avoid CCP. Some of them did this to launder the dirty money as well. Their numbers might be small but the chilling effect of outbidding everybody else outrageously will incentivized realtors to spread the "good news" to their customers/clients that "hey... that unit over there is sold $ x million dollars, would you be interested to sell yours as well?" Suddenly before you know it, the market is f*cked.

rb808 7y ago

At least an American billionaire pays some American taxes. If a foreign speculator makes a lot of money they aren't even paying any income or capital gains taxes here.

klipt 7y ago
> if a foreign speculator makes a lot of money they aren't even paying any income or capital gains taxes here. False, even if you're not US resident, you still have to file non-resident tax returns and pay taxes on all US sourced income. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonresident-aliens-source-of-income https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonr... > A nonresident alien (NRA) usually is subject to U.S. income tax only on U.S. source income.
tareqak 7y ago
An vacancy tax deals with both domestic and foreign buyers keeping homes unoccupied. Here is the link to the city of Vancouver’s Empty Home Tax: https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-tax.aspx https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-t... .
amenod 7y ago
The cynic in me would correct you that neither pays much taxes.
asdfadsfgfdda 7y ago
They are still paying plenty in property tax. From the city's perspective, you couldn't ask for a better resident. Somebody who pays full property tax and consumes almost no services (schools, police, etc).
- finaliteration 7y ago
  But they also don’t participate in the local economy and can just blindly vote against anything that impacts their bottom line (e.g. tax increases) rather than having to interact with and see the impact on people who actually live and work there whose lives are impacted by local and regional politics.
- zapita 7y ago
  They often pay very little property tax, thanks to California prop 13. Long-time property owners are incentivized to just ride the real estate boom with a vacant building that costs them nothing. The city gets almost no tax revenue, and the neighborhood is crippled in its development. As a bonus those property owners are politically active and fight zoning reform and development/transit projects to protect aforementioned real estate boom.
- s0rce 7y ago
  Why is the city's perspective purely financial? Shouldn't it be driven by the needs of the residents? City residents need housing and the the local business need inhabitants. If you extend your "city" to the limit it would just be a giant physical investment with buildings no one lives in. The city, basically just an investment company would have a lot of money from the taxes and providing minimal services but until that happens the actual residents should drive the policies, in my opinion.
- hello_moto 7y ago
  They drive artificial demands which increases the overall price. At the end of the day, it's not good for the local residents. It's not as simple as "they're not here thus they're not consuming any services". The resulting effect of sky-high property cost ripples to everything else below it (jobs, transportation, etc).
- compiler-guy 7y ago
  They do consume one thing: housing stock that would otherwise be available to residents. Whether or not that outweighs the benefits of paying taxes but not consuming city services is a different issue.
- 7y ago
damnyou 7y ago
American billionaires dont pay much taxes either. The solution to this is to fix the tax code, not retreat further into nationalism.
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
  >not retreat further into nationalism God forbid we feel any natural affinity towards our fellow countrymen. Any alternative is so artificial and forced.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    "God forbid we feel any natural affinity towards our fellow countrymen" Such an affinity is not "natural" because no one is born with any sort of innate ability to distinguish among nationalities, much less feel any affinity towards certain nationalities. Any such distinctions and feelings are taught through indoctrination such as nationalistic rituals, media, and the attitudes of those around you. A nationality is a legal fiction which changes absolutely nothing about who a person really is or what they do. Nationalism and group affiliation have been the causes of some of the worst atrocities in history, so we should be very wary of encouraging either. Regardless of their nationality, I personally feel much more affinity with someone who is helping others over one who is hurting others.
    - GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
      I say national but I mean local as opposed to global. My town is more important than my county which is more important than my state, etc. my philosophy also extends to animals and plants, meaning it’s not a human-centric view but biocentric. It’s doesn’t seem natural to care less about local Bird/insect populations and local ecosystems as much as human poverty on the other side of the planet.
    - homonculus1 7y ago
      There is a good and perfectly natural reason to favor people from our own country: they have to live under the same system as us. They have skin in the game on our team. Someone acting in our country but operating out of a different one can exploit the difference in rules to our detriment (e.g. a Chinese company competing in Western markets, but with the finger of state backing pushing on the scales). On a large enough scale it's a threat to democracy etc. if our group decides that groups no longer matter, and another group doesn't. You can iteratively, conservatively try to approach an equilibrium where borders and divisions no longer matter and all of humanity joins together in enlightenment. That seems to be the general direction we're going and it's a good thing. What you can't do is unilaterally make a cooperative system out of a competitive one. If you go all at once by yourself you just get killed. Nationality is a big (and in some cases literal) Chesterton's Fence. It is somewhat arbitrary, but that doesn't make it meaningless.

davidw 7y ago

Everyone gets to feel good if they can blame "the wealthy foreigners" rather than look at their own crappy housing policies, such as the rampant NIMBYism and huge market distortion from Prop 13. Faceless "wealthy foreigners" are easier to dislike than their own neighbors who show up at planning commission meetings to rant about someone adding an extra bedroom to their home (this is an actual thing I read about in San Francisco).

sidlls 7y ago
Where I live "wealthy homeowners" are the NIMBYs. They suddenly appear out of nowhere to argue in city council meetings against more housing, then leave their homes empty more than half the year (or all year). That most of them are also foreign is incidental: it'd be just as bad if it were Americans doing this.
- davidw 7y ago
  Foreigners cannot vote, so it seems odd that the city council would pay that much attention to them. My point is that there's a small but persistent current of thought regarding the housing crisis that wants to pin the blame on "wealthy foreigners buying up all our real estate", as sort of an 'out' for taking a good, hard look at local housing policies.

GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago

There’s a lot of money in real estate. It’s better staying in the country than going to Chinese firms. If it makes no difference to you, why not favor your own country?

damnyou 7y ago
Because I am a committed internationalist and believe that national borders are the greatest moral atrocity that exists today.
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
  Thinking nationalism is about borders and not about loving your own people. We have a limited amount of love and attention to spread. Focusing that energy externally rather than internally causes neglect on your own people, like the homeless in the US. It’s like choosing where to put your skill points at the beginning of an RPG. Even acting like it’s morally superior when it’s just an inefficient form of welfare. It’s a bunch of feel good. I say “national” but I don’t really care about Florida or NY way over here in California.
- samferguson 7y ago
  > national borders are the greatest moral atrocity that exists today I think this a fairly superficial claim. I agree that there are reasons to question the moral basis of national borders (why should someone be given additional rights based on where they were born?) but there are immense practical benefits that arise from having national borders. From a utilitarian perspective, these practical benefits likely outweigh the costs. In the case of placing additional taxes and restrictions on foreign investment in real estate - yes, this may restrict the freedom of foreigners, but the overall benefit of these laws could be sufficient moral justification.
- waynecochran 7y ago
  Kim Jon-Un will downvote you.
metalliqaz 7y ago

hello_moto 7y ago

> An American billionaire buying a few condos and keeping them empty has the exact same effect as a Chinese billionaire doing so. There are more nuances to this. Chinese millionaires and billionaires don't care about the sales price. They do it to diversify their portfolio to avoid CCP. Some of them did this to launder the dirty money as well. Their numbers might be small but the chilling effect of outbidding everybody else outrageously will incentivized realtors to spread the "good news" to their customers/clients that "hey... that unit over there is sold $ x million dollars, would you be interested to sell yours as well?" Suddenly before you know it, the market is f*cked.