Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (454)

Submitted by Me, from the comments at bondeconomics.com, it's a three-parter, somehow the Homeys don't notice the inherent contradictions:

Not a fan of land tax.

Courtesy of adding an extension on my house, I will face a greater tax bill than my neighbour, who has a lot that is probably the same size as mine.

That's an argument against 'property tax' and an argument for LVT.

Meanwhile, some dimwit ripped down the house a few doors over, and put up a monstrosity that has probably 40% more square footage than my house, but on a smaller lot.
Taxing land alone would reverse the tax burden than what happens under property taxes (the monster house faces the largest property tax, but the smallest land tax). This would be so unfair that Canadian voters would obliterate anyone foolish enough to propose such a policy.

That's now an argument for 'property tax' and against LVT. Can he make up his mind?

The rule is that LVT is set according to site premium assuming optimum permitted use. In any area, some plots will be over-developed and some will be under-developed; we don't need individual and specific valuations of each plot or each building; they get averaged out in each area and each plot is taxed as if it were put to the average or typical use.

So maybe Brian's neighbour owns an under-developed plot; the dimwit lives on an over-developed plot and Brian has hit the optimum - so Brian will be paying the right amount of LVT.

Even if final LVT assessments are a bit arbitrary, so what? The aim is not primarily to achieve 'fairness' between land owners, which would happen anyway. (Even if certain individual assessments are too high/low, then today's landowner's loss/gain is tomorrow's land owners corresponding gain/loss.)

The aim is to achieve 'fairness' between land owners and the productive sector. Any LVT, however arbitrary the valuations, is always going to be 'fairer' than smashing the real economy with massive taxes on turnover, wages, profits and consumption to pay for the public services which create and maintain land values in the first place.

Since there are almost no transactions for land alone in developed areas, there is literally no way to get a legitimate value on land; any valuation is purely guesswork pulled out of some "expert's" nether regions.

That's easy; LVT assessments are based on rental values; we compare like with like to arrive at the site premium, average it all out a bit, job done.

Furthermore, funding a basic income with a land tax shows a huge lack of understanding of Functional Finance. A basic income is extremely inflationary, which is why it is a bad idea relative to a Job Guarantee. Taxing land (or property) is hitting the people who have the lowest propensity to consume out of income -- which is a terrible way to control inflation.

i) He's confusing the taxation side with the spending side. It's a traditional KLN.

ii) A basic income is not inflationary, and certainly not any more than any item of government spending - such as Job Guarantee - is inflationary.

iii) There is no inflation in the real economy, people get better at doing stuff, and over time everything gets cheaper. The only inflation that matters - and which really damages the economy - is land price inflation.

iv) He finishes off by chucking LVT and property tax in the same pot, and overlooks the basic point that landowners are consuming; they're just consuming out of taxes on other people's income. Which makes it the worst kind of consumption.