15
Tax the land (mastodon.social)

Tax the land

One radical idea to solve America’s housing crisis.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22951092/land-tax-housing-crisis

@socialism

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] jlou@mastodon.social 3 points 1 month ago

That's why you use the revenue derived to fund a UBI. Then, there would be a safety net, which could potentially be used to partially cover one's land value tax obligations. As land becomes more valuable it is important that people use it more productively. Land value tax encourages building denser and reduces urban sprawl.

Many people rent housing. The key advantage of a land value tax is that landlords are unable to pass it on to tenants. They have to take the hit.

@socialism

[-] Ava@beehaw.org 5 points 1 month ago

It doesn't seem clear to me at all why landlords wouldn't be able to pass the value on to tenants.

[-] jlou@mastodon.social 1 points 1 month ago
[-] Ava@beehaw.org 2 points 1 month ago

The claim in this article seems to me to be flawed. The core claim seems to be that the landlord cannot pass on the costs to the tenant because the market is at capacity. But what this really means is, the tax WILL be passed through to the tenants until maximum exploitation of the tenants (as a resource) has been reached. Which would include the UBI safety net as well, since the system demands (intentionally) maximum exploitation of this limited resource, no?

At this point, the landlord can continue to reduce their OWN share of the profits, sure. But the LVT will continue to increase over time, so eventually the landlord is priced out of the area, the building closes, and all tenants are evicted. MAYBE this particular landlord has enough capital to re-invest into the land that it may again become profitable with additional investment, but EVENTUALLY this will not be the case, and the property must be sold. This centralizes all land assets over time into the control of whichever conglomerate has enough resources to maximally develop the area.

And what of the tenants? Rent prices are deemed to have been at their maximum for the region. Tenants in this case are displaced, at least for the amount of time that redevelopment will take. And, because the value of a particular parcel of land seems likely to be similar to a neighboring one of identical size, this increase is likely to affect ALL housing providers in a particular area with similar circumstances, since we have to assume that development doesn't happen in massively disproportionate jumps.

load more comments (1 replies)
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
15 points (100.0% liked)

Socialism

2812 readers
43 users here now

Beehaw's community for socialists, communists, anarchists, and non-authoritarian leftists (this means anti-capitalists) of all stripes. A place for all leftist and labor news and discussion, as long as you're nice about it.


Non-socialists are welcome to come to learn, though it's hard to get to in-depth discussions if the community is constantly fighting over the basics. We ask that non-socialists please be respectful and try not to turn this into a "left vs right" debate forum by asking leading questions or by trying to draw others into a fight.


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS