When people speculate on land it doesn't get used as much as it should. By having people pay for the value of the land, that either forces them to make use of it, increasing housing supply, or get rid of it, which then the next person who buys will make use of it. Even a partial land value tax like we see in certain PA cities[0] yields real results and after implementing the tax vacant land went away and current homeowners actually saw a tax decrease.
When you tax land value, the initial price of the property drops to offset, which makes it easier for less wealthy people to afford a down payment. A perfect land value tax would set the price of land at zero with a hefty month tax payment.
If this raises more tax money then the government can meaningfully spend, you simply give it back evenly to the community. Note that, just like the carbon fee and dividend system, still incentivizes that people use as little land as they can.
This sounds like the quick way to create a nation of renters. Otherwise, people would be priced out of their homes in short order by the ever increasing LVT. Which of course, isn't a bug, but the feature of Georgism (a family of 4 living making a home there probably won't permanently be the most efficient form of land use on that plot)
Renters are already paying for the land value, so if a renter can afford a property, so to can a homeowner. Under a Land Value Tax it is even easier to be a homeowner, as you no longer have a huge upfront cost of buying the land. As we saw in PA, current homeowners saw a tax decrease because so much vacant land went up for sale. A larger land tax would see even more positive effects. A larger land tax would also allow us to start reducing sales and income taxes, since that would end up simply increasing land values by more than they tax.
Since this incentivizes increasing the housing supply, zoning would quickly change from exclusionary to abundant. With those new homes being built, people would choose to move from their worn-down house into something new and better, and their current property would eventually have the same fate. It's not kicking people who love their homes out, it's letting people leave their homes for better ones.
You would still have apartments. You would still have AirBNB's. You would still have co-ops. You would still have houses.
Any tax money in excess of what is currently paid would be currently would simply be given back as a citizen's dividend, unless that tax money could be better spent on infrastructure, infrastructure that would pay for itself in higher land taxes that would yield even more land tax share dividends.
Precisely. A nation of renters rather than a two tiered class system with land owners at the top of the economic hierarchy and elderly renters at the very bottom.
Land being a liability means that the "owner" will have zero incentive to hoard it. It will mean that owners of low rise property in high demand locations wont be doing everything in their power to inhibit high rise development because theyre sitting on a pot of gold. Theyll be sitting on a pot of taxes instead.
It means any undeveloped land will be developed or sold to somebody who will.
It means slumlords who rent out shit housing will lose money.
We all recognise that this is the appropriate way to deal with electronic spectrum - auctioning off time limited rights. The idea that your great-great-grandfather owned 400-405MHz so you should too is no less ridiculous.
