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The biggest problem with it as presented in Progress and Poverty (i.e. as a Single Tax to fund the government budget, not some small supplementary levy to fund

The biggest problem with it as presented in Progress and Poverty (i.e. as a Single Tax to fund the government budget, not some small supplementary levy to fund something like local services) is that the size of the tax bears relatively little relation to the ability of someone to pay it (at least, to pay it without selling their house). Turfing pensioners out of their house because the land it sits on gained in value faster than their pension whilst others earn millions virtually tax free obviously isn't a natural vote winner.

TimPC 5y ago
Most modern day versions proposed allow you to defer the tax until the sale of your home or pay it as part of the settling of your estate.
zozbot234 5y ago
> Turfing pensioners out of their house because the land it sits on gained in value faster than their pension This is a well-known canard. If someone can't pay their tax on a primary residence, you put a lien on the property that becomes enforceable when the ownership changes hands, whether by sale or inheritance. No one gets "thrown out" of their homes.
- notahacker 5y ago
  Proposing children are kicked out of family homes isn't necessarily more politically palatable, and deferrals introduce revenue issues (especially if LVT causes land value to fall over time, which is often mooted as an advantage by Georgists...) But that's a minor issue compared with the second part of my post, which is that if a proposed tax reform reduces the tax burden on almost every corporation and high net worth individual (bar a few land speculators and domestic oil well owners), ordinary people have to pay more to the government or get less from the government. LVT might be perfectly viable as a tax, but as a Single Tax replacing the existing set of taxes (which arent exactly optimal from the point of progressitivity to start off with) it's a wealth transfer on an unprecedented scale from people whose wealth is mainly the property they bought (including the land it sits on) to people whose wealth is mainly the shares they own. The latter category is much richer than the former.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    "Corporations" don't bear the incidence of any tax, they merely pass it along to something else. And taxing high net worth individuals on their savings reduces investment significantly, making everyone worse off. That's why it makes sense to single out "land"-like assets for taxation in the first place. Much of the value locked in "shares" is itself land, and would of course be taxed. Unlike with ordinary corporate taxes, the impact of this would unambiguously fall on the owners.
    - notahacker 5y ago
      Sure, much of the value locked in shares is land or land-like assets but a much higher proportion of the value of the average middle class person's property is land. So as taxes go it's incredibly favourable to most one percenters, and ordinary homeowners are amongst those whose taxes must make up the difference. (And Single Taxers have to raise 1/3 of GDP from someone so its not like the possibility of the middle classes actually paying less tax providing they kiss goodbye to their homes and move into a high rise or rural Nevada is a solution and not a different category of problem) Efficiency arguments that the average middle class homeowner would still be better off materially even with a much higher personal tax bill because the Zuckerbergs and Dorseys of this world would retain more untaxed profits and dividends to use their superior resource allocation skills to invest in land-free Bigger Adtech might appeal to the armchair neoclassical economist but for obvious reasons the public are more sceptical.
      - zozbot234 5y ago
        Even if you focus on real estate alone, land is a "much higher" portion of that value only in urban cores where owning one's residence would be relatively uncommon (and that for very sensible, rational reasons). The areas that are most commonly associated with middle-class real estate ownership have significantly lower land values. While it's hard to say whether a genuine "single tax" is actually feasible given modern trends in government spending, the overall incidence of LVT is really quite favorable to the middle class and especially to the lower class.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Maybe Im heartless, but I don't see why people should be allowed to stay in a home they can't afford just because they've been there a while. Especially when the reason they can't afford it is because the community thinks it should support high density housing but they have a low density home.

TimPC 5y ago

Most modern day versions proposed allow you to defer the tax until the sale of your home or pay it as part of the settling of your estate.

zozbot234 5y ago

> Turfing pensioners out of their house because the land it sits on gained in value faster than their pension This is a well-known canard. If someone can't pay their tax on a primary residence, you put a lien on the property that becomes enforceable when the ownership changes hands, whether by sale or inheritance. No one gets "thrown out" of their homes.

notahacker 5y ago
Proposing children are kicked out of family homes isn't necessarily more politically palatable, and deferrals introduce revenue issues (especially if LVT causes land value to fall over time, which is often mooted as an advantage by Georgists...) But that's a minor issue compared with the second part of my post, which is that if a proposed tax reform reduces the tax burden on almost every corporation and high net worth individual (bar a few land speculators and domestic oil well owners), ordinary people have to pay more to the government or get less from the government. LVT might be perfectly viable as a tax, but as a Single Tax replacing the existing set of taxes (which arent exactly optimal from the point of progressitivity to start off with) it's a wealth transfer on an unprecedented scale from people whose wealth is mainly the property they bought (including the land it sits on) to people whose wealth is mainly the shares they own. The latter category is much richer than the former.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  "Corporations" don't bear the incidence of any tax, they merely pass it along to something else. And taxing high net worth individuals on their savings reduces investment significantly, making everyone worse off. That's why it makes sense to single out "land"-like assets for taxation in the first place. Much of the value locked in "shares" is itself land, and would of course be taxed. Unlike with ordinary corporate taxes, the impact of this would unambiguously fall on the owners.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    Sure, much of the value locked in shares is land or land-like assets but a much higher proportion of the value of the average middle class person's property is land. So as taxes go it's incredibly favourable to most one percenters, and ordinary homeowners are amongst those whose taxes must make up the difference. (And Single Taxers have to raise 1/3 of GDP from someone so its not like the possibility of the middle classes actually paying less tax providing they kiss goodbye to their homes and move into a high rise or rural Nevada is a solution and not a different category of problem) Efficiency arguments that the average middle class homeowner would still be better off materially even with a much higher personal tax bill because the Zuckerbergs and Dorseys of this world would retain more untaxed profits and dividends to use their superior resource allocation skills to invest in land-free Bigger Adtech might appeal to the armchair neoclassical economist but for obvious reasons the public are more sceptical.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      Even if you focus on real estate alone, land is a "much higher" portion of that value only in urban cores where owning one's residence would be relatively uncommon (and that for very sensible, rational reasons). The areas that are most commonly associated with middle-class real estate ownership have significantly lower land values. While it's hard to say whether a genuine "single tax" is actually feasible given modern trends in government spending, the overall incidence of LVT is really quite favorable to the middle class and especially to the lower class.

colinmhayes 5y ago

Maybe Im heartless, but I don't see why people should be allowed to stay in a home they can't afford just because they've been there a while. Especially when the reason they can't afford it is because the community thinks it should support high density housing but they have a low density home.