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And those actually promote sprawl - let me explain.
In PA often the stormwater police make developers pretend a paved vacant lot is "meadow, good condition" and use up half the lot on various stormwater basins and such. Then PENNDOT comes in and makes the prospective paved vacant lot developer give up 25% more of the lot on various traffic engineering fantasies and contributions to signalization to solve pre-existing traffic concerns. Then developer says to heck with it and moves further out to an ag field, leaving a blighted commercial property that could have been redeveloped at no cost to the taxpayer but for fantasyland regulations.
Then MD does the same thing on a regional scale - exporting its development to PA and WV to save a few horse farms.
Then your ***** is with EPA and the Cleanwater Act.
And, once again, blight and non-development happens because there's no market. Developers will do all the mandates (they'll whine) if they see an acceptable ROI. No ROI, no redevelopment.
People don't bank land they put it to use. A parking lot is an use of land that generates revenue in one of two ways:
People land bank all the time. I held on to a vacant lot in Philly for 4 years. Eventually I built a house on it but in the interim 4 years my property taxes ranged from $60-$90. That's ludicrous. There are plenty of developers and parking companies sitting on relatively large tracts of land that they pay maybe $2-$3000 per year in taxes on. They're speculating, plain and simple. No one in the business hesitates to call a parking lot of strip mall on the edge of the downtown core "an interim use." Not even the owners themselves.
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1. Customers with cars need somewhere to park nearby and will choose a store with a parking lot over one without. It isn't practical to use public transit for everything(Want to carry home 5 cans of paint on a bus or walk with it for blocks, good luck!).
First of all it's not a matter of parking or no parking. It's a question of surface parking vs. structured parking but still if you're in a big city where any of this stuff becomes relevant, well . . .
Even if you were so impulsive that you decided, "I have to paint my apartment right now!" and ran out to the store for 5 cans of paint there are these things called taxis. You step to the curb, stick your hand in the air, they stop, you get in. They'll take you wherever you want to go.
"Property taxes today generally consider both land and the buildings on them. But George understood something important: that taxing buildings to some degree discourages new building. Under a land tax, in contrast, a developer pays the same amount if the land is used for a parking lot, a single-family house, or a soaring skyscraper."
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Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81
What a dumb idea. Next ...
Ohiogirl is correct. If we only tax land, the tax rates on the land will skyrocket to cover municipal costs. This will lead to a concentration of land ownership among only the very wealthy, depriving the middle class and lower classes of the opportunity to own land. Owning land is one of the basic tenets of a free and upwardly mobile society.
Ohiogirl is correct. If we only tax land, the tax rates on the land will skyrocket to cover municipal costs. This will lead to a concentration of land ownership among only the very wealthy, depriving the middle class and lower classes of the opportunity to own land. Owning land is one of the basic tenets of a free and upwardly mobile society.
Home ownership has some benefits, I'm not sure if a land tax would make it harder to own a home, just more land. Why would owning just land have much to do with a free and upwardly mobile society? Under a land tax system, a home on one acre would be taxed eight times more than a home on an 1/8 acre.
Home ownership has some benefits, I'm not sure if a land tax would make it harder to own a home, just more land. Why would owning just land have much to do with a free and upwardly mobile society? Under a land tax system, a home on one acre would be taxed eight times more than a home on an 1/8 acre.
A 1 acre home may well be taxed (assessed, rather) at a much higher rate than one on a smaller lot, but maybe not a factor of 8. Typically a house sort of expands to fit the allowable lot coverage (you know, the old developer line "the building should be at least 2 1/2 times the value of the land).
In some areas the land is worth more than the house, especially if the house is older.
The OP really should've done a better job at introducing the concept - perhaps with an FAQ or something - because it's pretty clear most people are unfamiliar with the concept in a practical or theoretical sense.
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Originally Posted by AtkinsonDan
Ohiogirl is correct. If we only tax land, the tax rates on the land will skyrocket to cover municipal costs. This will lead to a concentration of land ownership among only the very wealthy, depriving the middle class and lower classes of the opportunity to own land.
As I pointed out in my previous post there are obvious flaws in implementation but it's always revenue neutral. If my property taxes went up by $2000 a year but I stopped paying $1000 a year in sales tax and $1000 a year in income tax then it's a wash.
Wage taxes and sales taxes are already highly regressive. The income tax in most states that have one is not very progressive either. In theory wealthy people would choose to locate their houses on larger lots, near parks and open space on the periphery or near the center of town. That land would be taxed at a higher rate. Again, the theory goes that the closer you are to public amenities and more robust infrastructure they higher your tax rate. Again, this only works alongside strict land use controls.
The lower and middle classes already have trouble staying amongst the ranks of property owners and it has nothing to do with a land value tax. In most of the larger metros the cost of housing is the largest impediment. Eroding wages and high property taxes don't help.
The idea behind the LVT was that the wealthy can always hide their assets in tax shelters or just send it offshore altogether. They don't derive their wealth through a salary so those kinds of taxes are ineffective.
On the other hand you can't hide a factory or an office building and you certainly can't hide the land that it's on.
The theory, and I mostly agree, is that we shouldn't tax productivity because it encourages people to be less productive or to try to hide it. I shouldn't be punished (in the form of higher taxes) for fixing up my house - and indeed I recently had my house pointed and had a bit of work done to fix some of the brownstone and my property taxes went up 25%. That makes no sense. On the other hand I shouldn't be able to let my house fall apart then write it off on my federal taxes. That makes no sense either.
Home ownership has some benefits, I'm not sure if a land tax would make it harder to own a home, just more land. Why would owning just land have much to do with a free and upwardly mobile society? Under a land tax system, a home on one acre would be taxed eight times more than a home on an 1/8 acre.
I understand your logic and my response would be to ask if you understand how small an 1/8 of an acre really is? I spent over seven years in Lowell, Massachusetts a dense community chock full of houses on 1/8-1/10 acre lots. An 1/8 of an acre only leaves enough space for a decent sized house, a two car driveway and perhaps a patio or deck. Many people crave more outdoor space than a driveway and patio.
I understand your logic and my response would be to ask if you understand how small an 1/8 of an acre really is? I spent over seven years in Lowell, Massachusetts a dense community chock full of houses on 1/8-1/10 acre lots. An 1/8 of an acre only leaves enough space for a decent sized house, a two car driveway and perhaps a patio or deck. Many people crave more outdoor space than a driveway and patio.
Yes, but I don't view an 1/8 of an acre as that small. I've lived on similar and smaller. The homes on the left are on a 1/8 acre:
An 1/8 of an acre is about 5000 sq. ft., 50X100. Using 8 foot setbacks on the side you now have a maximum house width of 34 ft., less if there's a side porch. The front setback will vary from 15 ft. to 25 ft., the rear setback will be similar, tending to the higher number. Under the new stormwater regulations impervious surfaces will be limited so any patio or driveway will have to be stone or pervious concrete. Most jurisdictions now also have green space requirements detailing minimum number of trees to be planted (or retained).
There are quite a few exemptions, eg primary residences/farms etc aren't taxed. There is also a threshold of $406,000. It is also a combined tax so that if you own 10 properties with each block of land worth 400,000, it means you pay tax on the combined value of $4 million.
One exemption I did find interesting was on page 10/15 where it says "land used for low cost accommodation within 5km radius of Sydney GPO". I did wonder what the definition of "low cost accommodation" would be (it doesn't seem to be referring to boarding houses as there is a separate exemption for that) and wondered whether "low cost accommodation" would include blocks of bedsitter/studio/low rent 1 bedrooms - eg 10 years ago I lived in a studio flat that cost me $180 pw (cheap at that time and probably almost impossible to find today in inner Sydney - even a room in a shared flat in inner Sydney would cost more) so I wondered whether my old block of flats would therefore be exempt from land tax.
Last edited by susankate; 02-07-2014 at 05:25 PM..
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