It emphasizes putting things in the hands of someone that wants to do something with it rather than just maintaining ownership as an option until a voluntary sale is desirable for the occupant.
Gee. I wonder who could ever be behind a push to make it easier for developers and real estate investment firms to utilize artificially created economic pressure to rearrange the ownership landscape, while also pushing all incentives in the direction of urbanization above all else.
That really has nothing to do with my issue.
My issue is that, under the proposed system, two people who each own half of Los Angeles will pay a lot of property taxes, because the other half of Los Angeles adds taxable value to their half, even if their half is unimproved.
But one person who owns the entirety of Los Angeles will pay no property taxes, because the unimproved land is worthless. This system guarantees that there will be a small number of people who own vast quantities of land, because that ownership structure minimizes the total tax burden. Sale of land would vanish to nearly nothing, because not only would the land have a very low cost of ownership - selling some of your land would raise the taxes you have to pay on the rest of it, the part that you keep!
The total amount of tax owed is different depending on the structure of who owns the land. Why does that make sense?
That is the goal, isn't it. To remove speculation from land ownership. Under this model the owner of the unimproved part of LA has no right to the increase in his land value since he did nothing to improve it. He either continues paying increasing taxes, sells it, or starts improving it. I see no bad side to it.
> But one person who owns the entirety of Los Angeles will pay no property taxes, because the unimproved land is worthless. This system guarantees that there will be a small number of people who own vast quantities of land, because that ownership structure minimizes the total tax burden.
What would be this persons incentive to own all this land under this model? Besides, somebody on the edges of this property starts some development and suddenly LA owners taxes raise.
> Sale of land would vanish to nearly nothing, because not only would the land have a very low cost of ownership - selling some of your land would raise the taxes you have to pay on the rest of it, the part that you keep!
This doesn't follow from anything. Land would have very low costs only if it is land that nobody wants, just like today. And selling your land will not lead to higher taxes on your remaining land unless the land that you sold gets improved in such a way that it increases the value of your land. Why do you think that landlords are entitled to value created by somebody else?
>The total amount of tax owed is different depending on the structure of who owns the land. Why does that make sense?
I agree, it doesn't make any sense. Luckily, your conclusion doesn't follow from anything that you wrote. The total amount of tax owed is different depending on the value of the land. Do you think that that also makes no sense?
It would lower their taxes.
> This doesn't follow from anything. Land would have very low costs only if it is land that nobody wants, just like today. And selling your land will not lead to higher taxes on your remaining land unless the land that you sold gets improved in such a way that it increases the value of your land.
Please don't bother responding if you have no idea what you're responding to.
