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This article highlights something that’s an issue almost everywhere, albeit maybe not as egregious. If I do nothing to my property, my taxes stay the same. If

This article highlights something that’s an issue almost everywhere, albeit maybe not as egregious. If I do nothing to my property, my taxes stay the same. If I add a shed, deck, pool, or whatever external feature to my property then the tax man comes and wants more money. The lesson? Don’t improve your property.

jacobr1 1y ago
The solution is to tax the land value rather than property improvement value. Any particular improvement from a property owner isn't taxed ... though implicitly the whole neighborhood getting more expensive (via the aggregate of all improvements and increased demand) does raise your tax.
- throwanem 1y ago
  That sounds like the same as now but with many extra steps.
  - swagasaurus-rex 1y ago
    Now being where you are disincentivized from making improvements?
    - throwanem 1y ago
      If I'm meant to treat a rise in property tax in response to positive change in value as a disincentive to improvement, what difference how the tax increase is computed? It isn't even clear LVT does not create a massive incentive to consolidation, as property tax increasing without connection to improvement kicks off a "Red Queen's race" where anyone unable to capture revenue from improvement, or unable to increase that capture, ends up facing a permanent structural bar to any ownership. It seems as though designed to annihilate even any possibility of an American-style middle class, in favor of an ever narrowing landlord gerousia enriching itself through rent farming. Well, it makes sense if you hope to be among the winners. But I don't see any Georgists here seeming very interested in addressing anything like that, just a couple who handwaved past it. [1] I'm not an economist, though, nor even very smart. I'm just a Baltimore homeowner who's heard a time or two before of such alternative tax scams. I mean schemes. [1] And the ones responding at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44826168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44826168, who seem thus far to present one argument each and retire discouraged by its failure. One hopes someone might come along willing to actually espouse this heterodoxy, rather than just try to feel "based" for namedropping around it.
      - sagarm 1y ago
        An LVT specifically targets land rents, yes including imputed rents. Implied is an end to income and sales tax. The effects of this will be to discourage things like a surface parking lot or low rise motel in the dense part of a city. Suburbs and rural areas nobody really cares about. I'm very confused about the idea that taxing land ownership more heavily will somehow lead to more consolidation and _favor_ landlords, and simultaneously harm existing homeowners. It's just incoherent. Perhaps I too am not smart.
        throwanem 1y ago
        Perhaps you are motivated not to reason. Forecasting growth rates of revenue from improvement, versus property tax apparently aka "land rent," and observing the possibility exists that one will grow faster than the other especially since many improvements generate no revenue at all, requires not all that much effort. But I had no idea you people were mad enough to argue seriously this should be the only tax of any kind anywhere. Excuse me.
        sagarm 1y ago
        Taxing land ownership reduces returns on land ownership, making consolidation less rather than more likely. Wasn't that your main concern? And yes, the amount of money to spend and how that money are collected are separate political questions. LVT is just about funding sources. Most Georgists are also for "pigouvian" taxes and taxing negative externalities.
        throwanem 1y ago
        How does reducing returns on land ownership make consolidation less likely, when improvement revenue looks to scale more or less proportionately - and superlinearly - with the area of contiguous property owned? If you buy a storefront, you can run a shop. If you buy the block, you can build a skyscraper and lease or rent out all the retail space, not to mention the apartments under the condos under the penthouses, all of which also make you money, of course. But again and still, we see Georgianism as the "camel's nose" for a complete overhaul of the economic and fiscal underpinnings of American society, and while this is a good time for such conversations - everyone else is coming off the fringe! Why not the remaining L. Neil Smith fans, once they've got their trusses and orthotics all in order? - for generally similar reasons I wouldn't expect to encounter a tremendously credulous public.
hopelite 1y ago
You are somewhat correct, even though I’ve never heard anyone say that or allow it to affect their decision in a major way. I do also suspect you may be in a place that is under rather oppressive government regulation. The problem is a far more fundamental one, because just as I’m trying to get people to understand related to this movement or initiative to do away with property taxes, certain government and asset holder support for that is likely more about personal enrichment and/or expanding total tax receipts by other means, i.e., ulterior motives. The fundamental issue here is the very premise of how the tax system functions not what kind of taxes are stolen and extracted where; and then redistribute to whom, usually for corrupted reasons and purposes. The effectively unlimited and unbounded, detached, and inconsequential nature of the tax system now is really the core problem. It’s currently other people’s money and mostly even future people’s money, squandered without any meaningful limits, barriers, or even rules regarding conflicts of interests; and there are virtually zero actual and real, immediate consequences for malfeasance by people charged with the duty of responsible allocation of funds. It’s a corrupt and rotten system from the very top to the very bottom. Unfortunately not enough people care, understand, or might even like it because they benefit from it and think they will die before the music stops. That’s how we get $37 trillion in national realized debt, another $74 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and another $9 trillion in state and local debt for a total national debt of $120 trillion in America’s public debt burden as of today.
- jewayne 1y ago
  I'm convinced that only people who have no idea how things get done in the real world can go on rants like this.
  - unnamed76ri 1y ago
    I think this person explained a lot about how things get done in the real world. They just don’t like it. What’s not to like about society spending itself into oblivion?
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >I’ve never heard anyone say that or allow it to affect their decision in a major way. It happens all the time. Half the time you see a facility that's using "temporary" tarp shelters and/or containers and/or trailers for some amount of it's covered area it's doing it for the taxes. The other half the time is for the expediency and flexibility (a sub component of which is fewer government approvals and government mandated steps, so basically taxes of another form). Any time you have a commercial development across multiple lots they run the numbers both ways and/or they'll subdivide a big lot or they'll buy adjacent parcels crossing a jurisdiction boundary to minimize expense (not just taxes, construction as well).
andrepd 1y ago
Based and Georgism-pilled. It's worse than that. If you sit on the property, but your neighbours improve it, make it a better place to live, create businesses that attract people, OR the public treasury builds a park, or a metro stop, or a new road, your property value increases, letting you capture the value that others worked for!
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
  Improvements around your property can also raise your property taxes, the next time they get re-assessed.
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    The increase is spread between land and improvement assessment, so the vacant lot owner’s taxes don’t increase in proportion.
- thmsths 1y ago
  Every time I see a single level parking lot, which is basically wasting half a city block by just covering it in asphalt and painting a few lines on it, in the middle of downtown, next to skyscrapers, I am painfully reminded of this fact.
  - sroussey 1y ago
    Must be grandfathered in. Could never do that now… city would want setbacks, planters, etc and reduced effective usable area by 25%.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      Still cheaper to get screwed out of 25% capacity on a $ per space parking lot than on a $$$$$ per space parking garage. So the parking lot gets built anyway. Oh, and it winds up taking more land than it would have 50yr ago specifically because of those setbacks and planters and other garbage.
  - 1y ago
tristor 1y ago
> If I do nothing to my property, my taxes stay the same. I wish that was the case, but in both counties I've owned houses, the tax appraisal increases every year regardless. They don't even drive by, they just use automation to increase it. I protest every year and "win" which means the increase is reduced or eliminated, but it's a fight to keep your taxes the same regardless.
- alistairSH 1y ago
  But that's because the calculated value of the land+building is increasing, right? The method of calculation might be wrong, but the tax going up isn't because the calculation is being arbitrarily changed - it's because one of the inputs is more valuable. At least that's the way it generally works where I live.
- btilly 1y ago
  This basically doesn't happen in California due to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_.... The unintended consequence is that cities get much more in taxes from businesses tban residents. California has therefore overbuilt its business base while underbuilding housing. The result is a severe housing shortage and sky high rents.
bigtex88 1y ago
Henry George has a fix for this issue.

jacobr1 1y ago

The solution is to tax the land value rather than property improvement value. Any particular improvement from a property owner isn't taxed ... though implicitly the whole neighborhood getting more expensive (via the aggregate of all improvements and increased demand) does raise your tax.

throwanem 1y ago
That sounds like the same as now but with many extra steps.
- swagasaurus-rex 1y ago
  Now being where you are disincentivized from making improvements?
  - throwanem 1y ago
    If I'm meant to treat a rise in property tax in response to positive change in value as a disincentive to improvement, what difference how the tax increase is computed? It isn't even clear LVT does not create a massive incentive to consolidation, as property tax increasing without connection to improvement kicks off a "Red Queen's race" where anyone unable to capture revenue from improvement, or unable to increase that capture, ends up facing a permanent structural bar to any ownership. It seems as though designed to annihilate even any possibility of an American-style middle class, in favor of an ever narrowing landlord gerousia enriching itself through rent farming. Well, it makes sense if you hope to be among the winners. But I don't see any Georgists here seeming very interested in addressing anything like that, just a couple who handwaved past it. [1] I'm not an economist, though, nor even very smart. I'm just a Baltimore homeowner who's heard a time or two before of such alternative tax scams. I mean schemes. [1] And the ones responding at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44826168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44826168, who seem thus far to present one argument each and retire discouraged by its failure. One hopes someone might come along willing to actually espouse this heterodoxy, rather than just try to feel "based" for namedropping around it.
    - sagarm 1y ago
      An LVT specifically targets land rents, yes including imputed rents. Implied is an end to income and sales tax. The effects of this will be to discourage things like a surface parking lot or low rise motel in the dense part of a city. Suburbs and rural areas nobody really cares about. I'm very confused about the idea that taxing land ownership more heavily will somehow lead to more consolidation and _favor_ landlords, and simultaneously harm existing homeowners. It's just incoherent. Perhaps I too am not smart.
      - throwanem 1y ago
        Perhaps you are motivated not to reason. Forecasting growth rates of revenue from improvement, versus property tax apparently aka "land rent," and observing the possibility exists that one will grow faster than the other especially since many improvements generate no revenue at all, requires not all that much effort. But I had no idea you people were mad enough to argue seriously this should be the only tax of any kind anywhere. Excuse me.
        sagarm 1y ago
        Taxing land ownership reduces returns on land ownership, making consolidation less rather than more likely. Wasn't that your main concern? And yes, the amount of money to spend and how that money are collected are separate political questions. LVT is just about funding sources. Most Georgists are also for "pigouvian" taxes and taxing negative externalities.
        throwanem 1y ago
        How does reducing returns on land ownership make consolidation less likely, when improvement revenue looks to scale more or less proportionately - and superlinearly - with the area of contiguous property owned? If you buy a storefront, you can run a shop. If you buy the block, you can build a skyscraper and lease or rent out all the retail space, not to mention the apartments under the condos under the penthouses, all of which also make you money, of course. But again and still, we see Georgianism as the "camel's nose" for a complete overhaul of the economic and fiscal underpinnings of American society, and while this is a good time for such conversations - everyone else is coming off the fringe! Why not the remaining L. Neil Smith fans, once they've got their trusses and orthotics all in order? - for generally similar reasons I wouldn't expect to encounter a tremendously credulous public.

hopelite 1y ago

You are somewhat correct, even though I’ve never heard anyone say that or allow it to affect their decision in a major way. I do also suspect you may be in a place that is under rather oppressive government regulation. The problem is a far more fundamental one, because just as I’m trying to get people to understand related to this movement or initiative to do away with property taxes, certain government and asset holder support for that is likely more about personal enrichment and/or expanding total tax receipts by other means, i.e., ulterior motives. The fundamental issue here is the very premise of how the tax system functions not what kind of taxes are stolen and extracted where; and then redistribute to whom, usually for corrupted reasons and purposes. The effectively unlimited and unbounded, detached, and inconsequential nature of the tax system now is really the core problem. It’s currently other people’s money and mostly even future people’s money, squandered without any meaningful limits, barriers, or even rules regarding conflicts of interests; and there are virtually zero actual and real, immediate consequences for malfeasance by people charged with the duty of responsible allocation of funds. It’s a corrupt and rotten system from the very top to the very bottom. Unfortunately not enough people care, understand, or might even like it because they benefit from it and think they will die before the music stops. That’s how we get $37 trillion in national realized debt, another $74 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and another $9 trillion in state and local debt for a total national debt of $120 trillion in America’s public debt burden as of today.

jewayne 1y ago
I'm convinced that only people who have no idea how things get done in the real world can go on rants like this.
- unnamed76ri 1y ago
  I think this person explained a lot about how things get done in the real world. They just don’t like it. What’s not to like about society spending itself into oblivion?
potato3732842 1y ago
>I’ve never heard anyone say that or allow it to affect their decision in a major way. It happens all the time. Half the time you see a facility that's using "temporary" tarp shelters and/or containers and/or trailers for some amount of it's covered area it's doing it for the taxes. The other half the time is for the expediency and flexibility (a sub component of which is fewer government approvals and government mandated steps, so basically taxes of another form). Any time you have a commercial development across multiple lots they run the numbers both ways and/or they'll subdivide a big lot or they'll buy adjacent parcels crossing a jurisdiction boundary to minimize expense (not just taxes, construction as well).

andrepd 1y ago

Based and Georgism-pilled. It's worse than that. If you sit on the property, but your neighbours improve it, make it a better place to live, create businesses that attract people, OR the public treasury builds a park, or a metro stop, or a new road, your property value increases, letting you capture the value that others worked for!

JoshTriplett 1y ago
Improvements around your property can also raise your property taxes, the next time they get re-assessed.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  The increase is spread between land and improvement assessment, so the vacant lot owner’s taxes don’t increase in proportion.
thmsths 1y ago
Every time I see a single level parking lot, which is basically wasting half a city block by just covering it in asphalt and painting a few lines on it, in the middle of downtown, next to skyscrapers, I am painfully reminded of this fact.
- sroussey 1y ago
  Must be grandfathered in. Could never do that now… city would want setbacks, planters, etc and reduced effective usable area by 25%.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    Still cheaper to get screwed out of 25% capacity on a $ per space parking lot than on a $$$$$ per space parking garage. So the parking lot gets built anyway. Oh, and it winds up taking more land than it would have 50yr ago specifically because of those setbacks and planters and other garbage.
- 1y ago

tristor 1y ago

> If I do nothing to my property, my taxes stay the same. I wish that was the case, but in both counties I've owned houses, the tax appraisal increases every year regardless. They don't even drive by, they just use automation to increase it. I protest every year and "win" which means the increase is reduced or eliminated, but it's a fight to keep your taxes the same regardless.

alistairSH 1y ago
But that's because the calculated value of the land+building is increasing, right? The method of calculation might be wrong, but the tax going up isn't because the calculation is being arbitrarily changed - it's because one of the inputs is more valuable. At least that's the way it generally works where I live.
btilly 1y ago
This basically doesn't happen in California due to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_.... The unintended consequence is that cities get much more in taxes from businesses tban residents. California has therefore overbuilt its business base while underbuilding housing. The result is a severe housing shortage and sky high rents.

bigtex88 1y ago

Henry George has a fix for this issue.