Yeah, because the value of your land just went up and you didn't do anything to make that happen. Only right that excess value goes back to society and reduces the tax burden of the working class.

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JuniperMesos 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you're a professional landowner and investor, and the taxes on one parcel of land in your portfolio went up because someone built Disneyland near it, this is fine. You might want to sell that parcel out of your portfolio now; or you might want to do something like build a hotel on it catering to Disneyland-visitors, which will earn you enough in profits to more than make up for the higher land tax.

If you're an ordinary person who owns the home you live in, and they build Disneyland next to it, most of the ways that the value of the land your home is on increases are useless or actively harmful to you. It's actively bad for you if you have to sell your family home and move somewhere else because you can no longer afford the taxes on it. You're probably not a professional real estate developer who knows how to effectively use the land as an investment, after all, you just wanted to live somewhere stable.

In fact, the increase of value of your land and the consequent tax increase under Georgist land value schemes, would be so bad for you, that you might decide to protestthe construction of that Disneyland to begin with. This is typically called "NIMBYism", and it happens all the time even under current property-tax schemes because the negative externalities of many different types of construction are bad for the quality of life of existing homeowners.

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the_sleaze_ 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

OK great make a homestead exemption. Lots of those already.

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hahahacorn 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can defer your property taxes and have them paid out of the proceeds when you sell your home/land.

	▲	rhines 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		How is this different from just having higher taxes on capital gains? (Obviously higher capital gains taxes would also impact other assets, but I mean in the context of land. Seems like both result in the same effect if you're able to defer LVT until sale.)

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vineyardmike 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why is it assumed true that individuals do not contribute to the increasing appeal of their neighborhood?

What if I voted for pro-theme park politicians? Or what if I volunteered my time to clean up the community parks and shared space? What if I helped improve the reputation of my child’s school by volunteering and donating to the music department?

My taxes fund the maintenance of public infrastructure and services, and my actions support the civic good. If I vote to be cheap or generous with taxes, or choose to be lazy or ambitious in community support, that all contributes to the desirability of the land around me.

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hahahacorn 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> Why is it assumed true that individuals do not contribute to the increasing appeal of their neighborhood?

Two things are true: 1. I should have been more precise in my language. "You didn't do anything to make that happen" is a useful generality and not a prescription of every single individual in the community. In this case, we're talking about fairness - which I don't actually care much about myself, but is a point that people most often can emotionally identify with. But, to continue, if you're carrying all that water on behalf of your land value, then good for you! You likely have an existing stake in the community, other than the land that you own (maybe the businesses or houses or other property built on that land or you own a local services business). That is great! The fairness comes from owning the finite resource of land, and not something others can provide (housing, businesses, etc.). I hope you do continue to contribute to your local community and increase its appeal!

2. Your fixation on this point reveals a very fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of an LVT (surely partially my fault). It has to do with efficient taxation. Dollar equal, it's better that your taxes come from the value of the fixed resources of your community rather than things that can be increased. Because then you don't have a depressing effect on productivity and the things, other than land, that make your community nice. It's better that you keep more money from the things you _do_ for your community instead of the monopolies you hold in your community.

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vineyardmike 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I disagree with the fundamental premise on both parts.

> "You didn't do anything to make that happen" is a useful generality and not a prescription of every single individual in the community.

In fact, everyone does contribute, positively or negatively, to their community. Either through involvement or absenteeism, or somewhere in between.

> Your fixation on this point reveals a very fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of an LVT

The goal is obvious and not a misunderstanding. The goal is a bad goal, precisely because it punishes positive involvement in the community. To improve the community means to increase your own cost of staying.

Imagine someone wants to avoid displacement due to their taxes increasing beyond their ability to pay. I don’t know why they would want to stay in their economically “inefficient” house, but perhaps it’s because home is where the heart is and they have sentimental attachment to their home.

If they want to keep your housing costs down, the best thing to do is poison the ground (metaphorically or literally) because it decreases the “productivity” of the land. Box stores in America famously pay low property taxes because building a box store actually decreases property values - they’re expensive to demolish and limited in utility, while being an eye sore that makes the neighborhood higher traffic and less undesirable. Mississippi as a state is cheap because the voters used the government to destroy public services - it’s in someone’s best interest to do this in a Georgism world if they don’t want to be regularly displaced.

	▲	hahahacorn 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Quite the contrary, it rewards positive involvement in the community and it punishes anti social involvement in the community (leaving your lot empty, letting your neighbors create a vibrant community you do not contribute to, and then selling at a large profit anyway). The reward is the taxes you're not paying on the positive productivity you're bringing to your community (which is how we're currently punishing those who make their communities nicer). Please just look at the pictures and decide if it peaks your interest enough to read the post: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/does-georgism-work-five-yea... Link with highlighted text (It's a single paragraph): https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/does-georgism-work-five-yea... > If they want to keep your housing costs down, the best thing to do is poison the ground (metaphorically or literally) because it decreases the “productivity” of the land Yes, if you collapse multi-dimensional problems into a single dimension you can find many logical oddities. If I wanted an easier time finding a doctors appointment, I should murder every non healthcare professional in my local area until all of their calendars are totally clear. Wanting cheaper healthcare is evil! You're really saying things for the sake of saying them and I'm not going to engage further or explain to you when you're saying irrelevant things. > it’s in someone’s best interest to do this in a Georgism world if they don’t want to be regularly displaced. Under the majority of proposed LVT policies (and the ones I support) the vast majority of American housing would see a decrease in net property taxes paid since the majority of American's Building / Land value ratio is orders of magnitude higher than the average parking lot, land speculator, etc.

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10000truths 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Liquidity is a value of its own. 10% equity in a $1M non-fungible residentially-zoned lot is much less valuable than $100K in cash, ready to wire at a moment's notice.

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chasd00 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What if the person who owns the land is working class? That’s who property taxes hit the hardest, working class people with a mortgage.

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Hammershaft 5 hours ago | parent [-]

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2024/how-higher-prope...

The Federal Reserve's research suggests higher property taxes help the young and the working class by improving the immediate affordability of homes.

	▲	chasd00 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That article is ridiculous “More expensive tomorrow, more affordable today”. It reads like a predatory credit card offer and is full of what if’s. High property taxes pushing down the sales price of a house does not help the buyer or seller. The buyer is going to pay the same, just more in taxes vs the loan, and the seller is going to get less because high taxes have reduced the value of their home.