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> Vacant land attracts higher taxes in Japan than land with buildings A hell of an incentive to build or sell your land to someone who will build. We've strugg
by ZoomerCretin 2y ago
> Vacant land attracts higher taxes in Japan than land with buildings
A hell of an incentive to build or sell your land to someone who will build. We've struggled with land speculation in the US for longer than we've been a country despite an obvious solution being available to fix this. We really could benefit from taxing land value alone, regardless of the value of any structures on top of it.
- skybrian 2y agoThere are lots of kinds of land. A vacant lot in a subdivision is one thing, but what about agricultural land? How about a wilderness land trust? Incentives are a blunt instrument. They necessarily push in the wrong direction sometimes, because they’re dumb rules. Beware one-size-fits-all solutions.
- idontpost 2y ago[dead]
- zdragnar 2y agoNeither agricultural nor wilderness trust land are counted as vacant. There's specific zoning and tax rules in most municipalities for them. Land that is zoned for some form of residential, commercial or industrial use but doesn't have building is considered to be vacant. The US doesn't have a shortage of land. However, vacant properties (residential or commercial buildings with no tenants) are indeed a problem in densely populated regions. For some areas, it's because the city population shrunk and nobody wants to live there (Detroit comes to mind as a semi-recent example) but for others it is speculative investors who don't want to be a landlord and are just betting the price will go up.
- skybrian 2y agoIn urban areas, sometimes they put in a parking lot, which I suppose doesn't count as vacant?
- zdragnar 2y agoIt wouldn't be counted vacant any more that one might call a park or a soccer field vacant. It is designated for a purpose. There's plenty of reasons to suggest that isn't the best purpose the land could serve, of course, but "vacant" wouldn't apply.
- gwern 2y agoAlso a disincentive to not buy land to build on, because now you have to pay for the demolition of the dangerous pile of rubbish on it pretending to be a house to reduce the tax burden.
- kube-system 2y agoThere are similar tax incentives in the US, e.g. homestead exemptions. A similar, if not better, effect could probably be achieved by adjusting these programs.
- vdqtp3 2y agoWhy, after reading an article about a situation driven in part by this policy, do you believe it would have the opposite effects that it is currently provably having in the real world?
- lmm 2y agoWhat are you talking about? The policy has kept housing prices low, exactly as it was meant to. If the cost of having housing as affordable as Japan's is having a few empty houses lying rotting in the countryside, it's one I'll pay gladly.
- shiroiushi 2y agoTaxing land value isn't the reason housing is cheap in Japan. This doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but the main reason prices are currently low is because 1) there's no economic bubble going on like there was in the 1980s, and 2) zoning policy here allows new construction of housing units on a huge scale to meet market demand, unlike other countries where zoning policy makes it very difficult to build new housing.