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> A lot of Boston is built on old swampland. Would Georgists say that the 2023 tax value of all of Back Bay is $0? This is exactly what I was addressing in: >
by afiori 3y ago
> A lot of Boston is built on old swampland. Would Georgists say that the 2023 tax value of all of Back Bay is $0?
This is exactly what I was addressing in:
> In practice likely the taxation would apply on a lot by lot basis, so you would have to count your huge land ownership as 150 thousand small lots each with significant unimproved value.
Let's play an experiment: in the middle of nowhere Alice and Bob each own two closeby land lots. Each lot by itself is worth essentially 0 dollars so neither Alice nor Bob pay any taxes on it.
One year Alice builds an hotel on her lot, her unimproved landvalue remains unchanged but Bob's increases to X dollars.
Another year Bob builds a restaurant on his lot, his unimproved landvalue remains unchanged at X but Alice's increases to Y dollars.
Honestly I am not sure how this would handle infrastructure development like a road or a railroad
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For georgist taxation to work you need to set a sensible limit to how big or small a lot can be: an entire city is too big and a square foot is to small.
The possible failure mode of this taxation is that all but the most efficient use of land can become impossible, but right now I believe that the problem of excessive rent-seeking and "parked land" are more critical
- sokoloff 3y agoThe question here is "what's the unimproved land condition?" not "how many lots is Back Bay?" When left as swampland, Back Bay is essentially valueless, both in aggregate and lot-by-lot. Someone in the past came along and improved that condition to the current relatively firm earth.
- afiori 3y agoQuoting wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax > A land value tax (LVT) is a levy on the value of land without regard to buildings, personal property and other improvements upon it. So if you were to own the lan under the Shamrock Pub in 501 E 8th St, Boston, MA 02127, United States you would pay taxes on that piece of land as if the Shamrock Pub was not there but obviously still considering the city around it. Georgism asks you to not consider the improvements UPON your land, not to ignore those AROUND it. The question of what that value is is quite easy to answer, it is the price of a similar empty lot in the same area, with the same developments around it.
- chipsa 3y agoHere's where I think you're going wrong: the unimproved land value of Alice's land does kinda change? If you try to do it specifically at the lot level, you go crazy. Do it at the neighborhood or block level on a per square foot basis, and you'll be able to levelize the value of two lots next to each other. And this handles someone building a private road or a subway or something: them building it increases the land value of the entire neighborhood, including the property the improvement is on, but the value of the improvement isn't included. It's having access to a subway, or having a hotel nearby, or a restaurant nearby that improves values, and they stack. There might be some adjustments on a lot level, but that's due to things like: water access might increase the value of the lots that have it, but not on the other side of the street that doesn't have access. And here's the thing: cities already calculate the value of the land separately from the stuff on top. I do look at my property taxes, and they break it into the two values.
- afiori 3y agoBy "lot by lot" I mean that for each lot of land you determine how much that land is worth considering everything around it. I believe that we are sort of saying the same thing.