6 ms·

It's a land value crisis. That's why the same size house costs more in a city. Society creates land value. Tax land, not labour.

tehsauce 7y ago
Wouldn't this discourage activities like farming, while helping technology giants get ahead?
- Thorentis 7y ago
  I think informing tax law with zoning would be useful here. Rural: tax labor. Residential: tax land. Commercial: tax land + building. And then if you're really feeling like reform: Tax assets instead of income for individuals, and tax both for corporations. Only tax income for small businesses.
  - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
    Interesting. After some thought, I’d summarize that all taxes on income and assets..including property.. are inappropriate. We should have a flat consumption tax for all. And a single one time child tax. It is in effect a double tax, but still will be lower impact than the cacophony of various taxes we have now...it can be used to fund education. Currently funded by property taxes. a single flat consumption tax will stabilize economy. I suspect that it would also curtail consumption and carbon foot print. A tiered consumption tax might be punitive but not a terrible idea even though it ought to be a back up or a emergency measure during crisis situations. Food, shelter, medical and educational expenses should be taxed after a minimal deduction.
    - amiga_500 7y ago
      > After some thought, Try a lot of thought. Like Henry George. Ricardo. Einstein. Friedman. And then reconsider.
      - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
        Right. Ok. Have you anything to add or comment about taxes? Esp re what those people have said?
        amiga_500 7y ago
        https://progressandpoverty.org/ https://progressandpoverty.org/
        jelliclesfarm 7y ago
        It’s little frustrating because you are not saying anything...just directing me to look up something or url links. I suppose you have no opinion? I see no point in continuing this exchange. Cheers.
        dandelo1953 7y ago
        I don't know a lick about the book mentioned or literal references you have been silently recommended to study. Obviously the implied message that you've yet to pick up on is that you should try and research your own ideas before profoundly postulating positive platitudes that are .... full of P? anyway, i suspect your "idea" is bad from the start... you say tax consumption... AND THEN tax the (just?) born... do you even darwin bro? You are giving the disenfranchised the shaft from the outset.. who do you think would like this? who do you surround yourself with to get to this line of thinking? Rhetorically, I'm done.
        jelliclesfarm 7y ago
        i am assuming it’s the child tax that’s seems to be a problem for you. I didn’t suggest anyone read anything. I think you might have mistaken subsequent comments to be mine. Perhaps if I expanded that as ‘pay taxes for the consumption of your own child’? And pay a fee before having kids. This could be in the form of a community trust or an investment fund at county, state or country level. We pay different kinds of taxes but children are negative taxes. As in, cost of rearing children is mostly subsidized by the govt with taxes. My suggestion was that every consumption good needs to be taxed. When income, property, inheritance etc are not taxed and only sale of goods is taxed, everyone pays a tax according to their lifestyle. Example: a sleeping cot is taxed much lower than a yacht or a house. Parents save and pay for their children’s education. The retirees live off retirement plans. In my last sentence I mention that food, shelter, medical and education are only taxed after minimal deductions. Which means, everyone essentially gets a kind of UBI for essential needs before their consumption in these survival categories is taxed. Obviously if one is ‘disenfranchised’ there is charity. Currently we consume too much using credit lines and debt. The key is to restrict consumption and eliminate waste/scarcity...have more local governance than regional governance.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    > Tax assets instead of income for individuals That would cause an incentive to consume and a disincentive to save. I don't think that is the direction we want to push our financial system in.
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      on the margin, yes, but most people want to retire eventually. income tax is itself a disincentive to work, but people still do.
- imtringued 7y ago
  Yes it would. Stop farming in downtown and go somewhere with cheap land.
  - amiga_500 7y ago
    You got it
- chongli 7y ago
  No, it wouldn’t. A proper land value tax is based on the unimproved value of the land. Farms are almost exclusively built in areas that have much lower land values than cities. Farming would already be discouraged if farmers could build skyscrapers over their fields and collect the rents from those buildings. Since nobody wants to live in a skyscraper in the country, this never happens.
HPsquared 7y ago
I'm not sure extracting even more money is going to solve the problem if the problem is alraedy one of high costs. Le Chatelier principle?
- pytester 7y ago
  It will discourage hoarding. Unproductively using land in high value locations that are growing is currently rewarded - with asset appreciation. If it is discouraged - with taxation, that land will be yielded to more productive use. Nobody creates land but somebody gets to "tax" it. Either we can let that revenue stream fill up government coffers or it can go into private pockets. It's our decision.
  - svantana 7y ago
    > Nobody creates land but somebody gets to "tax" it. Well put. If I suggested privatising air and that you needed to pay the owner to breathe it, that would be seen as ridiculous, and rightly so. Meanwhile, land is an equally natural resource and equally essential to human life, but private land is just accepted as "the way it is".
    - esotericn 7y ago
      This isn't a reasonable comparison because air is almost completely fungible; it's automatically redistributed throughout Earth by the magic of physics. Not only that, it's not scarce. People in fact do pay for 'special' air in the form of air purifiers, air conditioning, heating, etc. Land is both scarce and unsubstitutable.
- svantana 7y ago
  Land taxes won't lower rents but probably won't increase them either, as rents are set by supply & demand. The cost for renting out a space over keeping it empty is minimal. Meanwhile the tax revenue can be used to subsidise rents (for example). IMO land ownership is a big negative externality, as others can't utilise that land and land is a finite resource. As with all negative externalities, they should be taxed heavily.
eire1130 7y ago
Hello my friendly Georgist
asdfqwer234 7y ago
"That's why the same size house costs more in a city." This idea is actually debunked in the report; Singapore and Tokyo do not have a similar kind of problem in American cities because there's more construction of housing. In America, there are more restrictions around building and less tenant rights (compared to Germany/Switzerland) which causes American housing to be an asset for both wealthier/older US citizens and foreigners.

tehsauce 7y ago

Wouldn't this discourage activities like farming, while helping technology giants get ahead?

Thorentis 7y ago
I think informing tax law with zoning would be useful here. Rural: tax labor. Residential: tax land. Commercial: tax land + building. And then if you're really feeling like reform: Tax assets instead of income for individuals, and tax both for corporations. Only tax income for small businesses.
- jelliclesfarm 7y ago
  Interesting. After some thought, I’d summarize that all taxes on income and assets..including property.. are inappropriate. We should have a flat consumption tax for all. And a single one time child tax. It is in effect a double tax, but still will be lower impact than the cacophony of various taxes we have now...it can be used to fund education. Currently funded by property taxes. a single flat consumption tax will stabilize economy. I suspect that it would also curtail consumption and carbon foot print. A tiered consumption tax might be punitive but not a terrible idea even though it ought to be a back up or a emergency measure during crisis situations. Food, shelter, medical and educational expenses should be taxed after a minimal deduction.
  - amiga_500 7y ago
    > After some thought, Try a lot of thought. Like Henry George. Ricardo. Einstein. Friedman. And then reconsider.
    - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
      Right. Ok. Have you anything to add or comment about taxes? Esp re what those people have said?
      - amiga_500 7y ago
        https://progressandpoverty.org/ https://progressandpoverty.org/
        jelliclesfarm 7y ago
        It’s little frustrating because you are not saying anything...just directing me to look up something or url links. I suppose you have no opinion? I see no point in continuing this exchange. Cheers.
        dandelo1953 7y ago
        I don't know a lick about the book mentioned or literal references you have been silently recommended to study. Obviously the implied message that you've yet to pick up on is that you should try and research your own ideas before profoundly postulating positive platitudes that are .... full of P? anyway, i suspect your "idea" is bad from the start... you say tax consumption... AND THEN tax the (just?) born... do you even darwin bro? You are giving the disenfranchised the shaft from the outset.. who do you think would like this? who do you surround yourself with to get to this line of thinking? Rhetorically, I'm done.
        jelliclesfarm 7y ago
        i am assuming it’s the child tax that’s seems to be a problem for you. I didn’t suggest anyone read anything. I think you might have mistaken subsequent comments to be mine. Perhaps if I expanded that as ‘pay taxes for the consumption of your own child’? And pay a fee before having kids. This could be in the form of a community trust or an investment fund at county, state or country level. We pay different kinds of taxes but children are negative taxes. As in, cost of rearing children is mostly subsidized by the govt with taxes. My suggestion was that every consumption good needs to be taxed. When income, property, inheritance etc are not taxed and only sale of goods is taxed, everyone pays a tax according to their lifestyle. Example: a sleeping cot is taxed much lower than a yacht or a house. Parents save and pay for their children’s education. The retirees live off retirement plans. In my last sentence I mention that food, shelter, medical and education are only taxed after minimal deductions. Which means, everyone essentially gets a kind of UBI for essential needs before their consumption in these survival categories is taxed. Obviously if one is ‘disenfranchised’ there is charity. Currently we consume too much using credit lines and debt. The key is to restrict consumption and eliminate waste/scarcity...have more local governance than regional governance.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > Tax assets instead of income for individuals That would cause an incentive to consume and a disincentive to save. I don't think that is the direction we want to push our financial system in.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    on the margin, yes, but most people want to retire eventually. income tax is itself a disincentive to work, but people still do.
imtringued 7y ago
Yes it would. Stop farming in downtown and go somewhere with cheap land.
- amiga_500 7y ago
  You got it
chongli 7y ago
No, it wouldn’t. A proper land value tax is based on the unimproved value of the land. Farms are almost exclusively built in areas that have much lower land values than cities. Farming would already be discouraged if farmers could build skyscrapers over their fields and collect the rents from those buildings. Since nobody wants to live in a skyscraper in the country, this never happens.

HPsquared 7y ago

I'm not sure extracting even more money is going to solve the problem if the problem is alraedy one of high costs. Le Chatelier principle?

pytester 7y ago
It will discourage hoarding. Unproductively using land in high value locations that are growing is currently rewarded - with asset appreciation. If it is discouraged - with taxation, that land will be yielded to more productive use. Nobody creates land but somebody gets to "tax" it. Either we can let that revenue stream fill up government coffers or it can go into private pockets. It's our decision.
- svantana 7y ago
  > Nobody creates land but somebody gets to "tax" it. Well put. If I suggested privatising air and that you needed to pay the owner to breathe it, that would be seen as ridiculous, and rightly so. Meanwhile, land is an equally natural resource and equally essential to human life, but private land is just accepted as "the way it is".
  - esotericn 7y ago
    This isn't a reasonable comparison because air is almost completely fungible; it's automatically redistributed throughout Earth by the magic of physics. Not only that, it's not scarce. People in fact do pay for 'special' air in the form of air purifiers, air conditioning, heating, etc. Land is both scarce and unsubstitutable.
svantana 7y ago
Land taxes won't lower rents but probably won't increase them either, as rents are set by supply & demand. The cost for renting out a space over keeping it empty is minimal. Meanwhile the tax revenue can be used to subsidise rents (for example). IMO land ownership is a big negative externality, as others can't utilise that land and land is a finite resource. As with all negative externalities, they should be taxed heavily.

eire1130 7y ago

Hello my friendly Georgist

asdfqwer234 7y ago

"That's why the same size house costs more in a city." This idea is actually debunked in the report; Singapore and Tokyo do not have a similar kind of problem in American cities because there's more construction of housing. In America, there are more restrictions around building and less tenant rights (compared to Germany/Switzerland) which causes American housing to be an asset for both wealthier/older US citizens and foreigners.