What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Dr.3D]

Seems somebody is confused as to this being a libertarian forum. LOL

[WilliamC]

There's no if about it.

Any time the success of any proposal that gives someone power over other people depends on the occupant of that position being the right kind of person, the decision of whether or not to create such a position must be made with the assumption that the person who actually occupies it will be the wrong kind.

Yes, never give to government any power that you wouldn't want your worst enemy to have, 'cause you never know when they just might be elected.

[Roy L]

You are old; we are young. You will die; we will win.

The truth will win. If you continue to oppose it, you will lose.

[Roy L]

lvt means you never own the land, any tax on the land means you do not own the land ever!!

Such claims are not only false and absurd but irrelevant and self-contradictory: government issues and enforces the title, and you only get it on condition that you keep the taxes current. So owning the land means paying the taxes on it. You seem to imagine owning land is like having your own little kingdom where you can do whatever you want, and need not answer to anyone else. Sorry, that's just a puerile feudal libertarian fantasy world.

[Roy L]

Any time the success of any proposal that gives someone power over other people depends on the occupant of that position being the right kind of person, the decision of whether or not to create such a position must be made with the assumption that the person who actually occupies it will be the wrong kind.

I see. So, before you agree to a general anesthetic for surgery, you should assume the surgeon is a psychopath. Yeah, that sounds real intelligent...

[Seraphim]

This

i agree that most of the original land grants were illegitimate. However, it's not possible to correct all of the grievances of history, and i certainly don't see how taxing people's property has anything to do with justice at all.

It's best just to work for freedom starting now. Land ownership will balance out over time, and revert to those who really produce things their neighbors need, if the government is not there to prop up their corrupt buddies.

I would support opening up national forest to reasonable homesteading.

[Roy L]

Well the person purchasing the land from an individual (or their estate) is benefiting from owning the land so why shouldn't they pay the taxes?

No, they are not benefiting from owning the land until after they have bought it -- when you say they should no longer have to pay any taxes on it. Your claims are reliably the exact, diametric opposite of the truth.

And if they can't afford to purchase the land and pay the tax then someone else will buy it instead, so I don't see your point.

You don't see that a billionaire who owns a lot of land and is able to (and rightly should) pay a lot of tax is not required to pay any tax under your proposal??

It is self-evident that you are simply refusing to know all relevant facts, and making claims that are diametrically opposed to the facts, in order to rationalize privilege, justify injustice and excuse evil.

Of course they could be if corrupt people were running the system.

No, they could not, because corrupt government officials are more intelligent (as well as more honest) than the sort of lying ninnies who typically oppose land value taxation.

Oh, so I get to set my own tax rate?

No, the data are just all public, so corrupt anomalies are easily exposed. But you do get to make $#!+ up about what I plainly wrote, a liberty of which you are taking remarkably comprehensive advantage.

Cool, then I'll set it to $1.00 per years.

Problem solved.

Let me know if you ever decide to address anything I have said.

No, the government could raise the taxes until the current owner could no longer pay and was forced off, then the government could take possession, turn right around and sell the land to it's buddies and then lower the taxes.

Yes, and the government could also just kill everyone and take all their stuff. But that is not an honest description of any plausible implementation of the proposed -- or any other -- tax system.

GET IT???

Corruption is a bitch.

Dishonesty is a bore.

Why not simply have government collect whatever taxes when the title is transferred then?

Because that would make the taxes proportional to how long it has been since the land was last transferred, making transfer less and less economically feasible the longer the land has been held -- the exact opposite of an efficient land allocation mechanism -- until neither buyer nor seller is going to be willing, or able, to pay 50 or 60 years worth of back taxes on the owner's death. People with IQs greater than their hat size are able to comprehend such facts. Dishonest people pretend not to know them.

Nothing is sure but death and taxes, and government will be their waiting to collect it's tax after the current owner dies and before a new owner can take possession.

Ensuring that no tax is ever collected from the landowner who pockets all the benefits, and no new owner can afford to take possession. Ingenious.

Why? Does it abolish annual property taxes in favor of a title transfer tax at time of sale?

Almost. It limits assessment increases to a very low level until the time of transfer, at which point the assessment is marked to market. This means low property taxes for those who hoard their land, high property taxes for anyone who wants to buy it. Result: declining market liquidity and increasingly inefficient allocation.

No, it provides these every second of every day.

By "every year" I obviously meant "continuously," not "annually."

So why not have the government collect the tax monthly? Or weekly? Or daily?

Many places do have monthly property tax payments, often bundled with mortgage and insurance payments. People with IQs higher than their hat size are able to understand the fact that there are costs associated with processing payments, which is why utilities, landlords, credit card companies, etc. typically bill monthly instead of hourly or nanosecondly.

Or when the land is sold and the title transferred?

Because that would create an ever-increasing financial barrier to title transfers, resulting in the tax never being collected and the title never being transferred.

So it's arbitrary.

It's not arbitrary. That is just another fabrication on your part.

Fine, then let government wait until the current owner is dead

That violates the "beneficiary pay" principle, as the beneficiary dies without ever paying. Indeed, that is self-evidently the only real purpose of your proposal: to make sure that the landowner is privileged to pocket the entire welfare subsidy giveaway from government, stealing as much as possible from society, and is never asked to repay any of it. You simply want greedy, idle, parasitic landowners to be able to steal as much as possible from the productive.

and collect the tax from the new owner before they take title.

The new owner hasn't received any benefit yet, so why would he be willing to pay 50 or 60 years of the former owner's back taxes?

How?

By eliminating the holding cost of land, and relentlessly increasing the transaction cost of transferring it. This is primer-level economics, which probably explains why you are completely ignorant of it.

If you have to pay taxes when you purchase property and before you take title then this would limit how much land one could buy to how much one could afford.

I.e., it would make current landowners a permanent, privileged landed aristocracy, and prevent the riff-raff from ever being able to afford to buy any land at all. Which is obviously your intention.

As long as the tax is paid up front why should the government care how long an individual holds the land?

It can't be paid up-front, because no one knows what the future flow of benefits will be -- and it will often be so large that no one could afford to pay for it up-front anyway. That is your evident intention: to make sure no landowner ever has to repay what he takes from society, and the landless are forever prevented from joining the idle, greedy, privileged landed elite.

Government will be there after they have died waiting to collect from the next person wanting to buy it.

Meaning only the very rich will ever be able to buy land, which is your evident intention.

No, land is not consumed,

No, that claim is just objectively false: "land" in economics includes depletable resources such as mineral ores, oil, soil fertility, natural standing timber, etc., which are indisputably consumed by use; and the consumption in question is in any case not of spatial locations per se, but of the benefits for which LVT is the just payment: locational advantages (including secure, exclusive tenure) that are provided by government and the community as well as by nature. You are simply trying to evade and obscure the fact that the landowner consumes these benefits, denying them to others, and thus must rightly pay for them. You want him to be able to steal them, and consume them without paying for them.

and these 'benefits' you speak of I say should largely be provided by the free-market to begin with,

The free market includes LVT, because otherwise landowning is inherently a subsidy to landowners, and there is no place in the free market for subsidies. Natural resources -- the physical qualities nature provides -- by definition can never be provided by the free market, as they already exist with no help from the free market. The services and infrastructure government provides cannot be provided by the free market unless they are funded by LVT, because their value all goes to landowners, who are not required to pay for them in the absence of LVT. The opportunities and amenities the community provides are provided by the free market, but there is no mechanism other than LVT that would require the landowners who get the benefit of them to pay for them.

Your notion of the free market is anti-economic nonsense.

and so the land owner would be paying for them anyway.

The only way landowners can be required to pay for what they take is via LVT, because the advantages they take from society arise as externalities, not contractual consideration.

No need to try again.

As all your "arguments" to date have been demolished as fallacious, absurd and dishonest, you will have to try again if you hope to rescue your proved-false beliefs.

**looks at our exchange in this thread**

Where?

When you demand to keep the publicly created increase in the value of your land.

LOL! Somalia has a free-market? That's news to me.

Tell me about how their government upholds contract laws and regulates against fraud and coercion in the market.

See the urls kuckfeynes posted in post #281:

http://mises.org/daily/2066
http://mises.org/daily/2701
http://mises.org/daily/5418

No, this is a cordial debate on RPF, not an economics class.

It might be a debate if you were offering any arguments. As it is, I am just schooling you in economics and logic. And honesty.

Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for wasting my time with your fallacious, absurd, and relentlessly dishonest crap.

[WilliamC]

Thanks for wasting my time with your fallacious, absurd, and relentlessly dishonest crap.

You're so welcome. I'll read your response and pick it apart later, if I feel so inclined.

It's just a matter of patience...

[Roy L]

Quote Originally Posted by roy l

fact: Landowners are the only net tax receivers

Google "Henry George Theorem" and start reading.

[Roy L]

I'll read your response and pick it apart later, if I feel so inclined.

No, you won't. At best, you will essay ever-more-fallacious, absurd, and relentlessly dishonest crap, in a futile effort to rescue your already-demolished fallacious, absurd and relentlessly dishonest crap. I have seen this pattern too often to imagine it will not be recapitulated here.

It's just a matter of patience...

No, it is a matter of your choice to make the preservation of your false and evil beliefs a higher priority than the truth. I have learned that even infinite patience on my part cannot overcome a decision not to know.

[Roy L]

Property tax is even worse than an income tax.

Wrong. Property tax is better than income tax because it bears more on economic rent.

I can't think of a worse form of taxation than one that can result in your home being confiscated.

Your lack of imagination (and knowledge of economics and history) is not an argument.

The fact is, in 1978 only a handful of resident homeowners in California had their homes "confiscated" for back property taxes. In every case, property taxes were the least of their financial problems, and in most cases their mortgages and/or other debts were also in arrears. Liars called these unfortunate circumstances "being taxed out of their homes."

A somewhat larger number of Californians took large (and tax-free) capital gains on their homes that year and sought accommodation better suited to their needs and means in less pricey neighborhoods. Liars also called this voluntary response to market price signals "being taxed out of their homes."

Putatively to prevent a few hundred such people from "losing their homes to property taxes" each year, Proposition 13 was initiated and passed, reducing and limiting property taxes, and resulting in relentlessly declining property tax revenue as a fraction of all state and local government revenue.

But that was not the only result of Prop 13. No. The relentlessly declining effective property tax rate blew an immense housing bubble -- as low property tax rates also did in Nevada, Arizona, and Florida -- entrapping MILLIONS of people into paying more for homes than they could afford. So now instead of a few hundred people each year "losing their homes to property taxes," HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CALIFORNIANS ARE LOSING THEIR HOMES -- AND THEIR WHOLE FINANCIAL FUTURES -- TO MORTGAGE DEFAULTS.

That is the real result of people's stupid, anti-economic, anti-justice, anti-logical hatred of property taxes. California committed suicide when it passed Prop 13, in the worst public policy blunder committed by any state since the Civil War. You are witnessing California's slow strangulation by the enormous and relentlessly increasing welfare subsidy giveaways it is forced to give landowners thanks to Prop 13.

[WilliamC]

No, they are not benefiting from owning the land until after they have bought it -- when you say they should no longer have to pay any taxes on it. Your claims are reliably the exact, diametric opposite of the truth.

Well if I purchased land I would certainly anticipate being able to benefit from doing so, otherwise why would I purchase it?

You don't see that a billionaire who owns a lot of land and is able to (and rightly should) pay a lot of tax is not required to pay any tax under your proposal??

He's already paid property tax under our current system. He would pay title transfer tax for each separate property he purchases under the system I'm making up.

It is self-evident that you are simply refusing to know all relevant facts, and making claims that are diametrically opposed to the facts, in order to rationalize privilege, justify injustice and excuse evil.

What is evil is forcing people from their homes that they have paid for and lived in for years because they are unable to pay property taxes, which have often been raised repeatedly whilst they were living in their homes.

Making someone pay a title transfer tax isn't evil, well no more so than any other tax.

No, they could not, because corrupt government officials are more intelligent (as well as more honest) than the sort of lying ninnies who typically oppose land value taxation.

Oh, now we see some rudeness coming out. Something the matter with having your premises questioned?

No, the data are just all public, so corrupt anomalies are easily exposed.

But what if they aren't acted upon? Whomever gets to enforce tax collection could selectively decide when and where to do so. I imagine a corrupt tax enforcer could make a lot of money by falsifying records of tax payments.

Who polices the tax collectors?

But you do get to make $#!+ up about what I plainly wrote, a liberty of which you are taking remarkably comprehensive advantage.

Let me know if you ever decide to address anything I have said.

Just bringing up uncomfortable possible problems with your land value tax, that's all.

Yes, and the government could also just kill everyone and take all their stuff.

Well gee I'm glad this has never happened in human history.

/sarc.

But that is not an honest description of any plausible implementation of the proposed -- or any other -- tax system.

Gee, I'm glad no government has simply decided to kill it's people and take their land. That makes your system so much more acceptable.

/sarc.

GET IT???

Yes, I get it. First kill everyone you don't like, take their land, then distribute to who you do like.

It's happened time and time again.

Tell me Roy, do you support a fully armed citizenry that gets to keep and bear weapons in public?

If so then I'm inclined to be a bit more charitable towards your proposed LVT system.

If not....

Dishonesty is a bore.

Which is why I am completely upfront about where I'm coming from.

I don't oppose all local property taxes but I don't think there should be any Federal tax on land or land ownership.

Because that would make the taxes proportional to how long it has been since the land was last transferred, making transfer less and less economically feasible the longer the land has been held -- the exact opposite of an efficient land allocation mechanism -- until neither buyer nor seller is going to be willing, or able, to pay 50 or 60 years worth of back taxes on the owner's death.

Then lower the tax rate.

People with IQs greater than their hat size are able to comprehend such facts. Dishonest people pretend not to know them.

And those who resort to insulting their debate opponents have already lost the argument, but I do appreciate your effort and I don't totally disagree with the concept of property taxes, depending on how they are implemented and collected.

Ensuring that no tax is ever collected from the landowner who pockets all the benefits, and no new owner can afford to take possession. Ingenious.

Like I said, lower the tax rate.

Almost. It limits assessment increases to a very low level until the time of transfer, at which point the assessment is marked to market. This means low property taxes for those who hoard their land, high property taxes for anyone who wants to buy it. Result: declining market liquidity and increasingly inefficient allocation.

So the State either ends up with the land after the current property owner dies because it's trying to get too much tax, or the State takes possession of the land from the current owner before they die because they are trying to get too much tax.

Sounds like the State needs to lower property taxes to me.

By "every year" I obviously meant "continuously," not "annually."

Many places do have monthly property tax payments, often bundled with mortgage and insurance payments. People with IQs higher than their hat size are able to understand the fact that there are costs associated with processing payments, which is why utilities, landlords, credit card companies, etc. typically bill monthly instead of hourly or nanosecondly.

So the timing of when the government collects the tax is arbitrary. Yearly, monthly, or, wait for it, upon death of current owner.

Because that would create an ever-increasing financial barrier to title transfers, resulting in the tax never being collected and the title never being transferred.

Only if the State insists on trying to collect too much in taxes.

Lower the amount that the government wants to take from it's citizens and this won't be as much of a problem.

It's not arbitrary. That is just another fabrication on your part.

As far as I can tell we're both just making it up as we go.

That violates the "beneficiary pay" principle, as the beneficiary dies without ever paying.

They paid a title transfer tax when they purchased the land.

Indeed, that is self-evidently the only real purpose of your proposal: to make sure that the landowner is privileged to pocket the entire welfare subsidy giveaway from government, stealing as much as possible from society, and is never asked to repay any of it. You simply want greedy, idle, parasitic landowners to be able to steal as much as possible from the productive.

No, I just don't want people forcibly removed from their paid-for homes because they are unable to pay property taxes, and I can't see under a LVT what would prevent a government from arbitrarily raising taxes on those it wishes to punish and lowering them for their cronies.

Sort of like our current government rigs the tax codes to favor the wealthy and not the working class.

The new owner hasn't received any benefit yet, so why would he be willing to pay 50 or 60 years of the former owner's back taxes?

Because they want to own the property? And again, if the State is asking too much in taxes then the simple solution is to lower the tax rate.

By eliminating the holding cost of land, and relentlessly increasing the transaction cost of transferring it. This is primer-level economics, which probably explains why you are completely ignorant of it.

Yes, you once more resort to insults to disguise your lack of interest in polite debate.

Hey, I'm not forcing you to waste your time responding you know.

I.e., it would make current landowners a permanent, privileged landed aristocracy, and prevent the riff-raff from ever being able to afford to buy any land at all. Which is obviously your intention.

No, my intention is to expose you as a communist land-grabber who wants the power to force anyone off of their property at any time so you can redistribute it more to your liking.

It can't be paid up-front, because no one knows what the future flow of benefits will be -- and it will often be so large that no one could afford to pay for it up-front anyway.

Yes, we just don't know how much of our money that government will demand in the future, so we must always be willing to pay more. and more. and more.

That is your evident intention: to make sure no landowner ever has to repay what he takes from society, and the landless are forever prevented from joining the idle, greedy, privileged landed elite.

No, my intention is to prevent people from being evicted from the homes they have paid for and live in.

That and wasting your time, obviously.

Meaning only the very rich will ever be able to buy land, which is your evident intention.

Only if the government wants to charge too much tax.

No, that claim is just objectively false: "land" in economics includes depletable resources such as mineral ores, oil, soil fertility, natural standing timber, etc., which are indisputably consumed by use; and the consumption in question is in any case not of spatial locations per se, but of the benefits for which LVT is the just payment: locational advantages (including secure, exclusive tenure) that are provided by government and the community as well as by nature. You are simply trying to evade and obscure the fact that the landowner consumes these benefits, denying them to others, and thus must rightly pay for them. You want him to be able to steal them, and consume them without paying for them.

Ah, now you do have a point.

Mineral rights, water rights, and land usage are separate issues and the vast majority of 'property owners' own only their homes and the land their homes are on.

It is those people whom, once they've paid off their mortgage, who should be allowed to live on their property until they die without having to worry about being evicted.

Conflating them with your 'evil idle landowners' is problematic for your system.

The free market includes LVT, because otherwise landowning is inherently a subsidy to landowners, and there is no place in the free market for subsidies.

Again, the vast majority of land-owners in the USA own the property their house is on, nothing more. Once you start tacking on mineral rights, water rights, timber harvesting, farming, ect that's a different set of issues than home ownership.

Natural resources -- the physical qualities nature provides -- by definition can never be provided by the free market, as they already exist with no help from the free market. The services and infrastructure government provides cannot be provided by the free market unless they are funded by LVT, because their value all goes to landowners, who are not required to pay for them in the absence of LVT. The opportunities and amenities the community provides are provided by the free market, but there is no mechanism other than LVT that would require the landowners who get the benefit of them to pay for them.

Unless those resources are brought to market then they do not benefit the land owner. It seems that there are already mechanisms in place to tax those sorts of benefits, but I freely admit I'm not much up on how much taxes people have to pay to operate a mine, an oil well, a timber plantation, or whatnot.

Your notion of the free market is anti-economic nonsense.

A free-market must have some sort of system to enforce contracts and property rights or it's not a free-market at all, just anarchy.

The only way landowners can be required to pay for what they take is via LVT, because the advantages they take from society arise as externalities, not contractual consideration.

Why cannot they be taxed when they bring the fruits of the land to market?

As all your "arguments" to date have been demolished as fallacious, absurd and dishonest, you will have to try again if you hope to rescue your proved-false beliefs.

No, I just enjoy watching those who want to take peoples homes from them try and defend their positions.

[Roy L]

The American Dream is an illusion, so long is there is a tax on ones property.

Think: was the American Dream more vital in California in 1978, or 2010? The big difference is the huge reduction in property tax rates since Prop 13 passed.

Are you aware of the Free State Project? It chose New Hampshire because it had the smallest state government in the union. It also had the highest property tax rates. Coincidence? You can probably contrive some rationalization to persuade yourself it is...

[WilliamC]

No, you won't. At best, you will essay ever-more-fallacious, absurd, and relentlessly dishonest crap, in a futile effort to rescue your already-demolished fallacious, absurd and relentlessly dishonest crap. I have seen this pattern too often to imagine it will not be recapitulated here.

No, it is a matter of your choice to make the preservation of your false and evil beliefs a higher priority than the truth. I have learned that even infinite patience on my part cannot overcome a decision not to know.

You're a funny guy Roy.

Thanks for posting


edit: just in case you really don't get where I'm coming from Roy, and if I am grossly mistaken in my assumptions, try this...

I know what I want and it isn't much just for all of my dreams to come true
It's not as if I wouldn't do them myself if how I only knew
So I guess I'll just imagine them now in my head a time or two
For to bring them to life may be beyond my might but to dream them is the least I can do

The first thing that I would wish for is for all of us to be friends
That every stranger be a person like me on whom others could come to depend
To speak from the heart and act out of love and seek only truth in the end
Until every encounter is more than mere chance and in each we all would win

Maybe then we would look around at our world and at our homes
Realize that they are one and the same for to each of us belongs
The inheritance of all of humanity, a species that has grown
From the womb of the earth being born into space our future the great unknown

For I believe we have a destiny both as individuals and as a race
To break free of the bonds of gravity and expand into outer space
So our children and theirs for a million years hence will never have to face
The threat of extinction grown all too real from the madness of the arms chase

In my dreams I see a future free of famine, war and disease
Where each individual accepts responsibility for the life he chooses to lead
Instead of looking for where to lay blame or how to appease the greed
We search instead for the inner peace that satisfies all of our needs

When all of this has happened and these things have come to pass
There is one final dream that would be just for me if it isn't too much to ask
Could somewhere out there be a woman who would love me faithful and steadfast?
For what good is life for a boy without girl or for a lad without his lass?


But you're welcome to form your opinions of me based solely on a single exchange of ideas we had on a thread about the proper role of taxation in a just society here on RPF, if that is what you wish to do.

[osan]

Common property is not under the control of the government. An example of common property is an open park. Anyone can use it. Anyone can access it. However, governments tend to have so many restrictions on parks that they become collective property. Unfortunately, socialists have perverted the term "commons" to make it practically synonymous with "collective"

Good work.

[heavenlyboy34]

Think: was the American Dream more vital in California in 1978, or 2010? The big difference is the huge reduction in property tax rates since Prop 13 passed.

Are you aware of the Free State Project? It chose New Hampshire because it had the smallest state government in the union. It also had the highest property tax rates. Coincidence? You can probably contrive some rationalization to persuade yourself it is...

The "American Dream" is a fiction invented by Annon Hennesy to lure young boys. It never existed outside of the realm of empty slogans and cliches.

[Athan]

Roy, seems clear from reading your posts that haters will be hating regardless of facts.

I'm not going to bother going line by line to refute you despite what you say because:

1. EVERYTHING you say is based on semantics. If a body of legislators decides to use a different appraisal method than what you propose which is more likely for our generations and future generations, then yes improvements can and WILL likely be considered part of an Ad Valorem tax. You can b.s. points of this and that but it won't matter. There will be evidence provided by skilled legislators, lawyers, and appraisers in a court of law that will refute everything you say about improvements not being a part of ad valorem. You could make the greatest case EVER and yet guess who the judge and jury will decide. Hint: Your side loses. Its like the income tax. There is no legal basis for it... but tell that to the IRS and try to get it overturned by Congress. Boom. "Its an excise tax."

2. I was responding to the original poster and what I say is in reference to HIS question. Your little rants frankly are meaningless and aren't what voters have to deal with when it comes to protesting ad valorem taxes to me as a real estate appraiser in an informal hearing, you'll be considered to be wasting your own defense time in Appraisal Review Board formal hearing, and they have no meaning when it comes to lawyers who are pressing law suits on residents who can no longer afford to pay their property taxes because of a death in the family or some sort of financial trouble which they are trying to recover from for multiple years and will have their property they once paid for in FULL now taken away.

When you can no longer consume because of the same financial trouble people cut back and make do and are not taxed accordingly, but they don't lose their home and estate. This is the heart of the problem. Ad Valorem in states (though I admit not all states may have the same methodology as of YET) does in fact discourage estate growth and beautification to home. I have witnessed it. To say otherwise is ignorance. I also don't care if you decide to nit pick this and that improvement not being part of ad valorem this or that system.. bleh bleh bleh, nag nag nag.... GUESS WHAT?! Your ARGUMENT DOES NOT MATTER and IS SEMANTICS. If your state decides to one day address their spending deficits and wants to incorporate improvements as part of real property then everything you tried to whine about here on the board was meaningless.

3. You don't seem to know jack about market value and property characteristics effecting land value. Seriously? You ask for English when I speak of market value? What else do you not understand about land value? Ever heard of natural resources, accessibility, land use, inventory development? How much time have you been wasting rudely bitching at other posters like your some sort of knowledgeable troll when you don't know this basic $#@!?

Keep grabbing quotes and making inane responses. I don't give a $#@! anyway as none of the responses you give apply to the real world.

[Athan]

Repost. Blast me having two windows at the same time.. Curses!

[Athan]

And that is exactly what Georgists oppose. Land Value Tax negates the improvements you make.

Well, it gets warped pretty badly once you give the politicians that inch they want. I've seen the mentality of the appraisal district. It becomes "we need to do our job, or we face the lawyers from the taxpayer, state, or entities". You can have this or that philosophy to justify it, but once you get lawyers involved, it becomes less humane to attempt being fair. Taxpayers will rat out their neighbors, they will bring in lawyers. What you have is an unachievable ideal after enough time passes. Sorry to burst your bubble.

[Roy L]

Well, it gets warped pretty badly once you give the politicians that inch they want...What you have is an unachievable ideal after enough time passes. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Politicians resist LVT with manic ferocity because they know it is the hardest tax to twist and corrupt.

[Roy L]

Roy, seems clear from reading your posts that haters will be hating regardless of facts.

IMO hatred is the appropriate response to an evil that inflicts a Holocaust worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, suffering, starvation, despair and death on innocent human beings EVERY YEAR.

I'm not going to bother going line by line to refute you despite what you say because:

...you can't refute a single sentence I have said.

1. EVERYTHING you say is based on semantics.

The difference between land and improvements is not a semantic one.

If a body of legislators decides to use a different appraisal method than what you propose which is more likely for our generations and future generations, then yes improvements can and WILL likely be considered part of an Ad Valorem tax.

If it is an ad valorem tax based on improvement value rather than land value. However, that is not the subject of this thread.

There will be evidence provided by skilled legislators, lawyers, and appraisers in a court of law that will refute everything you say about improvements not being a part of ad valorem.

"Ad valorem" means "to (i.e., directed at) value." The value of WHAT is taxed determines what an ad valorem tax is a tax ON. An ad valorem tax on LAND, which is the subject of this thread, does not include the value of improvements. I don't know any clearer way to explain that to you.

2. I was responding to the original poster and what I say is in reference to HIS question.

He explicitly stated that he was talking about a tax on LAND value, not current property tax systems which also tax improvement value.

Your little rants frankly are meaningless and aren't what voters have to deal with when it comes to protesting ad valorem taxes to me as a real estate appraiser in an informal hearing, you'll be considered to be wasting your own defense time in Appraisal Review Board formal hearing, and they have no meaning when it comes to lawyers who are pressing law suits on residents who can no longer afford to pay their property taxes because of a death in the family or some sort of financial trouble which they are trying to recover from for multiple years and will have their property they once paid for in FULL now taken away.

<sigh> Simple question, Athan: do you know what "land" is?

When you can no longer consume because of the same financial trouble people cut back and make do and are not taxed accordingly, but they don't lose their home and estate.

Selling your house to seek accommodation in a location better suited to your needs and means is not "losing" your home or estate. Being dispossessed after defaulting on your mortgage because inadequate land value taxation boosted land values too high for you to afford IS losing your home or estate.

Ad Valorem in states (though I admit not all states may have the same methodology as of YET) does in fact discourage estate growth and beautification to home.

Because it is an ad valorem tax on improvement value as well as land value. However, that is not the subject of this thread.

I have witnessed it. To say otherwise is ignorance.

To say that improvements are land is not ignorance, because you know very well that improvements are not land. It is dishonesty.

If your state decides to one day address their spending deficits and wants to incorporate improvements as part of real property then everything you tried to whine about here on the board was meaningless.

Fixed improvements are part of real property by definition. They are not part of land by definition. I do not know any clearer way to explain that to you.

You ask for English when I speak of market value?

I ask for English when you post ungrammatical and incomprehensible gibberish.

What else do you not understand about land value? Ever heard of natural resources, accessibility, land use, inventory development? How much time have you been wasting rudely bitching at other posters like your some sort of knowledgeable troll when you don't know this basic $#@!?

Did you have a point you imagined you were making?

[redbluepill]

You selectively quoted them. I made no such false assumptions. I only go by the words of the philosophers/economists/praxaeologists themselves.

I am not saying that all classical liberals would agree with the geoist system. I am merely pointing out the fact that a great number of them agreed land should be treated separate from property.

You claim to be going by their words but I provided quotes to the contrary by some you referenced.

[redbluepill]

Maybe the lazy bastards who feel the need to be compensated should just work to acquire the ability to occupy more of that space.

Its the lazy bastards that are targeted with the LVT! A landlord does not have to do anything and make a profit collecting rent on something he never created. All he had to do was be the first on the land and claim it as his. The productive are rewarded. For they would not be taxed for their labor or product.

[redbluepill]

No one is born with a right to land. Sure, they can walk around on the land of others, with their permission, but until they pay for something, no matter if it is food, clothing, fuel a home or land, they have no right to it.

Do you not realize how ludicrous your statement is? If you have no right to be standing on mother earth then you have absolutely no rights at all.

[redbluepill]

But the thought of someone being thrown out of their paid-for residence for failure to pay property taxes is abhorrent and should never happen.

And it wouldn't happen.

[redbluepill]

How about THIS - No more rationalizations. Taxation is theft. Arguing over which tax is least offensive is like trying to pick out of a line of girls, all of whom have STD's. "I'll take the one with crabs, that bitch with the Ghonnorhea sludge is just too gross".

Except Georgists don't argue for the LVT as the "least evil" tax. They argue for it because it is just compensation.

And I dont think you ever responded to my replies.

[redbluepill]

Libertarians, on the other hand, believe that property is the root of all good.

Yes, all private property is good. The problem arises when you assume that land is property.

[redbluepill]

If property is the root of all good, you must favor chattel slavery, taxi medallions, licenses to steal, and every other form of robbery and oppression that can be implemented as ownable property. Ooops...

You need to find a willingness to know the fact that not all property is good or rightful. Once you have progressed to that point, you can begin to consider what forms of property are rightful under what conditions, and why.

Not as long as you refuse to know facts that prove you wrong, there isn't.

^And I would add this caveat with my previous statement.

[heavenlyboy34]

Its the lazy bastards that are targeted with the LVT! A landlord does not have to do anything and make a profit collecting rent on something he never created. All he had to do was be the first on the land and claim it as his. The productive are rewarded. For they would not be taxed for their labor or product.

Incorrect. Lands owners have to maintain the land to prevent it from losing value. Check your premises-they're still wrong, as are your conclusions(ditto for Roy L).

[redbluepill]

You are old; we are young. You will die; we will win.

Wow. That's real mature.