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I think the problem with land-value taxes is that objective valuation of raw land value is actually difficult and even arbitrary. If you say a parcel of land is

I think the problem with land-value taxes is that objective valuation of raw land value is actually difficult and even arbitrary. If you say a parcel of land is valuable because there's a building on it, you wind-up with just a real estate tax. If you value all land the same, people will just abandon ownership of large parcels, probably with paradoxical results. Almost automatically, the assessment of just land has to be harder than the assessment of land plus the property that's there. And assessing land for taxes tends to be politically hard. For example, the overall process of real estate taxation in California was politicized into a disastrous mess years ago with proposition 13. Just undo prop 13 would be a simpler matter and even that likely isn't going to happen. Further consider, the objective land value of a parcel in Mountain View is probably less than the assessed value a lot of homeowners pay their taxes based on. I'd be in favor of measures that force more intensives use of that land but taking on home-owners with vast political influence is going to be a challenge.

Retric 6y ago
You don’t need a great deal of precision with a land value tax. If the closest properties where sold at X$/ acre that’s a solid suggestion of the actual value of that land. The goal is essentially to separate the value of land based on local infrastructure like subway systems from the amount of effort put into improving the property. An empty lot that’s worth 10,000$ per acre may physically look the same as an empty lot worth 10,000,000$ per acre, but it’s clear society not the property owner generated that value is. That said, there are a lot of edge cases like beach front property vs having another house in front.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  You don’t need a great deal of precision with a land value tax. You need a ball park figure for land value to work and even that is going to depend on the philosophy used for valuation. If Walmart buys the cheapest land it can find and builds a distribution center on that land, how much is that land worth? What they paid for it? What someone else would pay for it now? How bought all the parcels around it that now would be useful for housing? Either paradigm is real estate valuation (at which point it become real estate tax) or the paradigm is something else with that something else up for grabs.
yellowapple 6y ago
> people will just abandon ownership of large parcels Good. That's the whole point. That abandonment of ownership gives other people the opportunity to make use of it for their own benefit. That is: the very act of land ownership externalizes opportunity costs on the rest of society, and this is what underpins wealth inequality. LVT forces landowners to internalize those costs.

Retric 6y ago

You don’t need a great deal of precision with a land value tax. If the closest properties where sold at X$/ acre that’s a solid suggestion of the actual value of that land. The goal is essentially to separate the value of land based on local infrastructure like subway systems from the amount of effort put into improving the property. An empty lot that’s worth 10,000$ per acre may physically look the same as an empty lot worth 10,000,000$ per acre, but it’s clear society not the property owner generated that value is. That said, there are a lot of edge cases like beach front property vs having another house in front.

joe_the_user 6y ago
You don’t need a great deal of precision with a land value tax. You need a ball park figure for land value to work and even that is going to depend on the philosophy used for valuation. If Walmart buys the cheapest land it can find and builds a distribution center on that land, how much is that land worth? What they paid for it? What someone else would pay for it now? How bought all the parcels around it that now would be useful for housing? Either paradigm is real estate valuation (at which point it become real estate tax) or the paradigm is something else with that something else up for grabs.

yellowapple 6y ago

> people will just abandon ownership of large parcels Good. That's the whole point. That abandonment of ownership gives other people the opportunity to make use of it for their own benefit. That is: the very act of land ownership externalizes opportunity costs on the rest of society, and this is what underpins wealth inequality. LVT forces landowners to internalize those costs.