Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (456)

Let's go round the clock of stupidity yet again, this time from y-combinator:

Land value tax is all about driving each parcel towards its highest-value, most economically rational use...

Not particularly.

The main aim is to make land owners pay for the value of the public services they receive instead of making businesses, workers and consumers pay for the cost of those public services through very arbitrary and damaging taxes (and then making them pay for the value of public services, in rent/mortgage repayments).

The 'efficient use of land' thing is a bonus, not a feature, just like the environmental benefits; the boost to the economy; the reduction in inequality etc etc.

City planning is all about cultivating low-value, (locally) irrational uses. So think about all the stuff that exists because planners kneecap its better-funded competition: art galleries, theaters, cute mom & pop retail, auto service & repair, manufacturing jobs, etc. Would you miss it? Could the city council get away with losing it?

Land Value Tax is set as a percentage of the site premium assuming optimum permitted use. If the City Council wants to protect certain types of activity, it can just dictate that Building A may only be used as an art gallery; Building B may only be used as a theatre etc.

So the highest bidding gallery gets Building A; the highest bidding theatre company gets Building B and so on, the LVT on each building is then set accordingly. The successful bidders will be the ones willing to pay the most tax, which seems fair and reasonable to me.

The extreme form of this is public parks, a 'locally irrational use' in his words. A rational council will make sure that there are public parks dotted around so that as many people as possible are within walking distance of one.

Those parks cost money to maintain, and the council receives zero income from them, but they enhance the rental value of all the surrounding land and buildings, so more than pay for themselves. If the council sold off the parks for private development, its total LVT income would fall.

LVT says the state should not only stop protecting these things, it should do a 180 and actively kill the uses by levying taxes they can't afford. Rather than slowing/blocking the transition to condos and formula retail, accelerate it.

Nope, see above. Also, he admits that LVT might 'accelerate' a process, which happens anyway, even without it.