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Rent control was an attempt to correct for an even worse government policy. If we repeal both CA prop 13, which freezes property taxes at a certain value when t
by curun1r 12y ago
Rent control was an attempt to correct for an even worse government policy. If we repeal both CA prop 13, which freezes property taxes at a certain value when the property is sold, we can repeal rent control as well. But both need to happen. And both are excellent examples of the "I've got mine, f#@K everyone who doesn't have theirs" thinking that's so pervasive in California.
If California were serious about fixing it's housing problems, it would:
1) Repeal prop 13. Yes, some grannies would be forced to sell their homes because their property taxes would go up beyond their ability to pay from their fixed income, but the overall effect would be positive. A side benefit of this would be that we could fund our schools again.
2) Cities could repeal rent control laws. If owners are forced to pay property taxes that reflect the true value, there's less likely to be an imbalance between the value they get from renting and from selling the property.
3) Cities should allow the building of more housing regardless of complaints of existing residents. Repealing prop 13 will also help with this, since there will no longer be a direct financial benefit to existing homeowners to block new construction at all costs. But the underlying problem that's evicting poor people from ares like San Francisco is that there's a severe imbalance between housing supply and demand. No amount of government meddling will fix that problem...the only thing that will is correcting that imbalance by increasing the supply of housing.
- afafsd 12y ago> If we repeal both CA prop 13, which freezes property taxes at a certain value when the property is sold, we can repeal rent control as well. As a non-American I think that property taxes are an abomination anyway. Tax people on their income if you must, but not on their wealth, especially not on non-liquid wealth. Otherwise you have retired people being forced out of homes they've owned for decades just because prices in the area have gone up.
- vonmoltke 12y agoOddly enough, I think in the US you would get more support for increasing taxes on wealth and decreasing taxes on income, at least at the lower ends of income.
- baddox 12y agoThat's essentially the idea behind Georgism, which has slightly influenced more mainstream political economic thought. In Georgism, natural resources (namely, land) are the only thing that is taxed, because natural resources are not created by human effort or ingenuity and thus should be taxed to avoid the land holders earning economic rent. Proponents argue that it is the only tax that is economically efficient. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
- curun1r 12y agoThat's because wealth, particularly land and other limited resources that provide a benefit to the owner without any effort on their part, should be taxed. If you don't tax it, that's what leads to monied elites that sit on their asses without providing any benefit to society. Untaxed property leads to property owners that mooch their existence off the rest of society. I've seen excellent arguments for taxing only those specific types of wealth because it maximizes the amount of productivity that each member of society is contributing to the group whereas taxing income has the effect of deterring productivity...granted, at the levels that we currently tax income, the deterrence factor is very small, but it's still there.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y agoI think you should tax the fuck out of people's wealth so that it doesn't accumulate vampire-like.
- vonmoltke 12y agoIt sounds like the problem with Prop 13 was that it applied to all property owners. Florida has a very aggressive value increase cap, but it is tied to homestead. If the property is not your primary residence, no cap for you. As soon as you move and rent the place, your value jumps up to market. Commercial property of all stripes is completely uncapped. This protects grandma who has been living in her house for 30 years while not allowing the apartment building owner who has owned a building for 30 years to rake in the dough because the taxes are absurdly low.