4 ms·
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
by r721 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
- rconti 3y agoFascinating. First I've heard of this. I can see the obvious advantages, though I'm sure there are disadvantages I'm missing.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bitshiftfaced 3y agoThe main disadvantage I see is that, despite being able to absorb all tax requirements, politicians and voters wouldn't be able to resist tacking on other types of taxes on top of it.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y agoVoters ultimately have to pay those taxes and politicians want to get reelected, so there’s a definite check there.
- waveBidder 3y agoHistorically, whoever controls the land also tends to control political power. But also, assessment is a really tricky proposition.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago> But also, assessment is a really tricky proposition. If anything it seems like it would be much easier than the current property tax assessment scheme.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoWell no, because people sell entire houses so you can use that to anchor valuations. LVT is only taxing part of the purchase, much harder to disentangle.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoNot at all, and any property assessor will tell you this (e.g. property assessments usually already separate land vs improvements). Nearly all houses are insured, so it's easy to calculate land value as sales price - insured value, basically because insurance only covers the cost of the house. Plus, nearly all locales either have empty lots that are sold, or if there is no more room have houses that are sold as teardowns, and in either case that gives you an unambiguous land value.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoThe thing about land is that there are a million reasons why one lot might be worth a different amount than one next door. A single lot selling in a neighborhood tells you little about the rest of the land prices in the area because of that. Maybe that lot is on a hill or next to a busy street or everyone knows the neighbor is a giant asshole. All these things change the price on a micro level and are impossible to disentangle.
- jjav 3y ago> If anything it seems like it would be much easier than the current property tax assessment scheme. Explain how it can be easier? If valuation is based on sale price of the property or nearby comparable properties, those are objective numbers. A sale actually happened, at that price. So it was worth that much to someone. No room for argument. A LVT gives power to the government to unilaterally declare that in some alternate universe, your plot of land might be worth a lot more, so they'll just go right ahead and tax you on that speculative amount in the absence of any evidence. That sounds very open to abuse.
- shawabawa3 3y ago
- brutusborn 3y agoAssessment definitely isn't easy, but some fairly simple solutions exist. For example, people could self-assess their land's value. To stop people low-balling the assessment, the Government could have an option to purchase the land at some % above the assessed price and then on-sell it. This way all valuations are linked to a market price rather than a bureaucratic process.
- Kinrany 3y agoHere's one idea. Effective land tax drives the sale price to 0, so it may be better to make taxes absolute, not relative to value. When someone wants to give up land because the taxes are too high, they just tell the city government. From that point, the tax goes down over time until someone decides to take the land at the current (absolute) tax rate. The old owner still pays the tax and can use the land in the meantime.
- quickthrower2 3y agoIs that cat a meme from the 1890s?
- dkbrk 3y agohttps://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-progress-a...
- Brycee 3y agoThis is well worth a read, as is the Progress and Poverty substack if you're curious about the subject. https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/ https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/
- Stevvo 3y agoI remember high-school economics class, every lesson the teacher would relate how georgism was a solution to the problem at hand. It sounded like a panacea for all society's economic woes.
- brutusborn 3y agoOnce you understand George's complaints about rent seeking you begin to see it everywhere. I don't think his proposals are a panacea but they would help with most problems in our society (e.g. housing affordability, income inequality). His theory is accepted by both heterodox and orthodox economists but unfortunately hasn't had enough mainstream political interest to prove its utility.
- zdragnar 3y agoHow ironic that a campaign with "free land" in the slogan treated land as a public commodity and sought to make land the entire basis of the government's tax income.
- letmeinhere 3y agoOnly ironic to those whose concept of "freedom" is "private and enclosed".
- zdragnar 3y agoIf your idea is that free means that it is something the government taxes, then I don't think I'd care for what the other two parts of the slogan (free speech and free men) might mean. If you mean "free use" then land and speech are okay, but I still don't like the idea being applied to people.