5 ms·

It's not that hard to find a price for a rare art piece, or almost any other asset. Make the owner declare its value, tax it at the value. But anyone can buy

It's not that hard to find a price for a rare art piece, or almost any other asset. Make the owner declare its value, tax it at the value. But anyone can buy it at that price. If they want to keep it, they'll need to value it correctly, and thus it will get taxed correctly.

tornato7 5y ago
This is called a Harberger tax and there has been extensive research on it: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12668&context=journal_articles https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...
ccn0p 5y ago
this would effectively auction off everything you own. What if an original piece of art is priceless to you? Where does it end?
- NullPrefix 5y ago
  If it is actually priceless, then you should not be able to hog it for yourself. /s
sokoloff 5y ago
Can you imagine the day that you declare a value on your house and the following week someone much richer than you comes along and tells you to "beat it; I just bought this place!"
- lovecg 5y ago
  Would do wonders for the Bay Area housing market! On a serious note, this proposal was originally coupled with a pretty radical (from our point of view) approach to land ownership. Land is closer to zero-sum than many other things (ignoring artificial islands etc.), so this forces a more efficient pricing/land use at the expense of doing away with private property rights for land.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Worried that a competitor is catching up or threatening your market? Use your cash reserves to buy their factory out from under them. Don’t bother competing with Tesla, just make sure they can’t keep going once they get a little traction.
    - ekelsen 5y ago
      Imagine a reasonable policy rather than simplistic worst possible policy strawman. There are already many many laws that prevent abusive transactions in the current system, there's no reason that there wouldn't need to be similar laws to prevent abuse here either.
- ekelsen 5y ago
  One can imagine reasonable policies around things like housing, my original two line reply was not meant to detail all the ways this would for all types of assets. I don't think anyone would have much of a problem with the simplistic scheme applied to rare art though.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I do have a problem with that. I would prefer the Mona Lisa to remain in the hands of the Louvre than be regularly auctioned off. I would prefer American Gothic to remain in the hands of the Art Institute of Chicago, etc.
    - ekelsen 5y ago
      Try to imagine a reasonable policy rather than assume the worst possible policy and then the outcomes that follow. One can imagine that public charities or government assets for example are exempt from such a scheme (since they don't pay tax anyway usually).
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        I’m trying to imagine the reasonably predictable response to the policy that you sketched out. Removing private property rights is not a casual undertaking I agree and would require substantial thought and care, perhaps too much to be practically workable.
        ekelsen 5y ago
        Your replies so far don't seem to indicate you gave much thought to how such a system would reasonably work -- as evidenced by the assumption that art owned by charities or governments (institutions which don't pay tax) would also be up for auction.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        You likewise don’t appear to have given a ton of thought to the logical responses that would likely occur from your proposal. How long until some rich art collector starts a charity to hold their art and protect it from being auctioned?
cableshaft 5y ago
This a worse idea than the Jump to Conclusions mat. I have to choose a price for all of my assets and then anyone could just be like 'yeah, I'll buy at that price' and take it from me? What if I bought the assets for the hope of it maybe being worth something in 5-10 years? Do I prematurely announce 'yeah, it's worth the price in 5-10 years that I hope it will be', and pay an enormous tax on something that's not a guarantee it will ever go to that price, just to keep other people from buying it from me if I announced what the market value is now? (And also I'm not allowed to keep any assets at market value unless I announce it's worth more to me?) Ugh. Never get in a position where you could feasibly propose this in government, please.
- ekelsen 5y ago
  Your reply could have been written to be a lot less insulting and assume I'm aware of policy implications of this proposal but did not choose delve into 150 years of research in a two line reply on HN. I wasn't proposing that this become policy for all assets. Would it allow you to accurately assess the price of rare high valued art for the purposes of a wealth tax -- yes. It would also allow you to value other assets as well, but there are drawbacks. I don't think your example of speculation is particularly good example of a drawback though. If you need to set the price at X so that someone doesn't buy it from you now, then that means its value is indeed just below X (assuming you've set X correctly). If you're the only person in the world you thinks that the value of your asset will be 10X in 10 years, then you can safely set the value at X now and nobody will buy it from you. If you aren't the only person in the world who thinks this and someone is willing to buy it from you now for 2X, then I guess the value of the asset right now is 2X.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    It's a completely ridiculous policy that would require enumerating every item in history and deciding if people are able to buy it from you. My fridge? My dog? My shoes? My car? My bike? My boat? My model railroad set? My grandmothers ashes? My underwear? Oops I accidentally undervalued my gaming computer on my taxes and now people are knocking on my door. You'd end up with a document 3 million pages long and vengeful neighbors and exes buying each others items to fuck with each other. You're calling it a strawman argument, but these are actual things that would have to be addressed. No amount of "delving into 150 years of research" gets around all the massive, massive holes in your ridiculous idea.
chmod600 5y ago
Interesting idea, but a fundamental aspect of private property is that you don't have to sell it. Maybe someone knocks on your door and says "I just bought your house. Get out." That would be pretty unpleasant. Or, more on topic for this site: maybe they do that with your startup.

tornato7 5y ago

This is called a Harberger tax and there has been extensive research on it: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12668&context=journal_articles https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

ccn0p 5y ago

this would effectively auction off everything you own. What if an original piece of art is priceless to you? Where does it end?

NullPrefix 5y ago
If it is actually priceless, then you should not be able to hog it for yourself. /s

sokoloff 5y ago

Can you imagine the day that you declare a value on your house and the following week someone much richer than you comes along and tells you to "beat it; I just bought this place!"

lovecg 5y ago
Would do wonders for the Bay Area housing market! On a serious note, this proposal was originally coupled with a pretty radical (from our point of view) approach to land ownership. Land is closer to zero-sum than many other things (ignoring artificial islands etc.), so this forces a more efficient pricing/land use at the expense of doing away with private property rights for land.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Worried that a competitor is catching up or threatening your market? Use your cash reserves to buy their factory out from under them. Don’t bother competing with Tesla, just make sure they can’t keep going once they get a little traction.
  - ekelsen 5y ago
    Imagine a reasonable policy rather than simplistic worst possible policy strawman. There are already many many laws that prevent abusive transactions in the current system, there's no reason that there wouldn't need to be similar laws to prevent abuse here either.
ekelsen 5y ago
One can imagine reasonable policies around things like housing, my original two line reply was not meant to detail all the ways this would for all types of assets. I don't think anyone would have much of a problem with the simplistic scheme applied to rare art though.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I do have a problem with that. I would prefer the Mona Lisa to remain in the hands of the Louvre than be regularly auctioned off. I would prefer American Gothic to remain in the hands of the Art Institute of Chicago, etc.
  - ekelsen 5y ago
    Try to imagine a reasonable policy rather than assume the worst possible policy and then the outcomes that follow. One can imagine that public charities or government assets for example are exempt from such a scheme (since they don't pay tax anyway usually).
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I’m trying to imagine the reasonably predictable response to the policy that you sketched out. Removing private property rights is not a casual undertaking I agree and would require substantial thought and care, perhaps too much to be practically workable.
      - ekelsen 5y ago
        Your replies so far don't seem to indicate you gave much thought to how such a system would reasonably work -- as evidenced by the assumption that art owned by charities or governments (institutions which don't pay tax) would also be up for auction.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        You likewise don’t appear to have given a ton of thought to the logical responses that would likely occur from your proposal. How long until some rich art collector starts a charity to hold their art and protect it from being auctioned?

cableshaft 5y ago

This a worse idea than the Jump to Conclusions mat. I have to choose a price for all of my assets and then anyone could just be like 'yeah, I'll buy at that price' and take it from me? What if I bought the assets for the hope of it maybe being worth something in 5-10 years? Do I prematurely announce 'yeah, it's worth the price in 5-10 years that I hope it will be', and pay an enormous tax on something that's not a guarantee it will ever go to that price, just to keep other people from buying it from me if I announced what the market value is now? (And also I'm not allowed to keep any assets at market value unless I announce it's worth more to me?) Ugh. Never get in a position where you could feasibly propose this in government, please.

ekelsen 5y ago
Your reply could have been written to be a lot less insulting and assume I'm aware of policy implications of this proposal but did not choose delve into 150 years of research in a two line reply on HN. I wasn't proposing that this become policy for all assets. Would it allow you to accurately assess the price of rare high valued art for the purposes of a wealth tax -- yes. It would also allow you to value other assets as well, but there are drawbacks. I don't think your example of speculation is particularly good example of a drawback though. If you need to set the price at X so that someone doesn't buy it from you now, then that means its value is indeed just below X (assuming you've set X correctly). If you're the only person in the world you thinks that the value of your asset will be 10X in 10 years, then you can safely set the value at X now and nobody will buy it from you. If you aren't the only person in the world who thinks this and someone is willing to buy it from you now for 2X, then I guess the value of the asset right now is 2X.
- yupper32 5y ago
  It's a completely ridiculous policy that would require enumerating every item in history and deciding if people are able to buy it from you. My fridge? My dog? My shoes? My car? My bike? My boat? My model railroad set? My grandmothers ashes? My underwear? Oops I accidentally undervalued my gaming computer on my taxes and now people are knocking on my door. You'd end up with a document 3 million pages long and vengeful neighbors and exes buying each others items to fuck with each other. You're calling it a strawman argument, but these are actual things that would have to be addressed. No amount of "delving into 150 years of research" gets around all the massive, massive holes in your ridiculous idea.

chmod600 5y ago

Interesting idea, but a fundamental aspect of private property is that you don't have to sell it. Maybe someone knocks on your door and says "I just bought your house. Get out." That would be pretty unpleasant. Or, more on topic for this site: maybe they do that with your startup.