Epic fail.
Go to Russia or Cuba, Mr Commie. From there...tell me if the other side really is greener.
Go to Russia or Cuba, Mr Commie. From there...tell me if the other side really is greener.
What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)
- Thread starter Mahkato
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redbluepill
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This whole forum is about debating philosophy...
redbluepill
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A few quotes in support of the geoist/Georgist philosophy:
“Men did not make the earth… It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property… Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.” — Thomas Paine
“Ground rents are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Ground rents are, therefore, perhaps a species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them.” — Adam Smith
“I have already read Henry George’s great book and really learnt a great deal from it… Men like Henry George are rare, unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form, and fervent love of justice.” — Einstein
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of [landed] property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise." --Thomas Jefferson
"Landlords grow richer in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title." - John Stuart Mill
“The landowner who withdraws land from productive use to a purely private use should be required to pay higher, not lower, taxes”. James Buchanan Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 1986
“Assuming that a tax increase is necessary, it is clearly preferable to impose the additional cost on land by increasing the land tax, rather than to increase the wage tax”.- Herbert Simon
Winner, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 1978
***Little known fact amongst libertarians: Libertarian Party founder David Nolan was a supporter of the land value tax!
“Men did not make the earth… It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property… Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.” — Thomas Paine
“Ground rents are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Ground rents are, therefore, perhaps a species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them.” — Adam Smith
“I have already read Henry George’s great book and really learnt a great deal from it… Men like Henry George are rare, unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form, and fervent love of justice.” — Einstein
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of [landed] property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise." --Thomas Jefferson
"Landlords grow richer in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title." - John Stuart Mill
“The landowner who withdraws land from productive use to a purely private use should be required to pay higher, not lower, taxes”. James Buchanan Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 1986
“Assuming that a tax increase is necessary, it is clearly preferable to impose the additional cost on land by increasing the land tax, rather than to increase the wage tax”.- Herbert Simon
Winner, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 1978
***Little known fact amongst libertarians: Libertarian Party founder David Nolan was a supporter of the land value tax!
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redbluepill
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Do we have to agree with Paul on everything? Economist Fred Foldvary supports Ron Paul as far as I know and he is a geolibertarian.
redbluepill
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I expect knee-jerk reactions from neocons, not Ron Paul supporters. Read up on Henry George and his ideas and come back and tell me he was not a huge supporter of the free market.
Edit: You calling Milton Friedman a commie?
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It's a user fee, not a "tax" --
Which is one reason why I'm for it!
Dr. Paul has said that he wants to abolish income tax, the IRS, and all the invasion of privacy and liberty connected to income taxation. He also says, rightly, that the so-called FairTax is still a sales tax and therefore, it still burdens the economy and contributes to a black market. Then you have the problems associated with taxation in general, in that nearly all taxes burden desired activities and do not directly correlate to any benefits received from government.
Therefore, the most libertarian and sensible solution is land value "tax," or rather, user fee for use the Earth's space and resources.
Totally untaxing labor, profits, sales, trade, and (at the local govt. level) real estate improvements, will remove a tremendous dead weight from the economy as we cease to penalize productive work and the efficiencies of trade.
Rather than taxing the above, we would collect rent on the use of resources, according to their market value. Economists have shown that unlike traditional taxes, shifting to land value revenue (LVR, like "lever"):
- is fairest since it corresponds to both ability to pay and benefits received;
- is most efficient since it does not penalize any productive activity;
- is a free-market source of revenue since one can choose what amount to pay (you choose where to live) and land values are set by the market.
- tends to downsize government, since governments would limit their activities to those that would support higher land values.
- tends to decentralize government, since most land is subject to a local and/or State jurisdiction.
Many other benefits -- see The Founders' Plan
If we are ever going to muster up the political will to radically revamp the federal tax system -- or even abolish the IRS and other unneeded federal bureaucracies -- then we can transition to a full LVR-based system, beginning with the federal government.
- Economist Fred Foldvary recommends an amendment to the united States Constitution prohibiting or phasing out all productivity taxes (income, sales, excise, tariffs, VAT) and replacing them with LVR. The government must live off the land. No fining people for working or for creating jobs. No revenue agency reaching into your pocket and bank account. No punishing people for buying or selling stuff. The fedgov would have to depend on revenues from things such as oil and mineral rights and extraction, grazing, fishing and hunting rights, other user fees, the use of interstate conduits such as railroads and pipelines, and EM spectrum. (Nominally, the people own the airwaves as a commons, but we are a lousy landlord -- giving away beachfront EM properties to big corporations like AT&T.)
- Simultaneously, be radically downsizing and decentralizing FG functions to the Constitutionally authorized entities (States, localities, or individuals). Over time, the abolition of deadweight taxation will radically change the economic landscape, such that many government programs purporting to "help the disadvantaged" will be unnecessary anyway.
- If any additional revenue is thought to be needed (such as for emergencies), require the fedgov to go through the States, like in old times (apportionment). In the past, the FG was free to levy taxes in this fashion and to specify land as the asset taxed.
- Have federally owned land within States assessed as if for taxation, to illustrate the tremendous amount of land value preempted by the fedgov which could instead be going into State and local coffers. Showing people what they are losing would spur more intense scrutiny of Federal activities.
- Return a portion of proceeds directly to citizens. Study Alaska, which actually is able to pay a yearly dividend based on natural resource development. This was spurred by "a desire to put some oil revenues out of direct political control" and directly benefit the People. A simplified version of the Alaska Permanent Fund could be operated by the fedgov (for rents/royalties on federal lands) and by States (for State lands).
Also see Foldvary, The Ultimate Tax Reform.
Which is one reason why I'm for it!
Dr. Paul has said that he wants to abolish income tax, the IRS, and all the invasion of privacy and liberty connected to income taxation. He also says, rightly, that the so-called FairTax is still a sales tax and therefore, it still burdens the economy and contributes to a black market. Then you have the problems associated with taxation in general, in that nearly all taxes burden desired activities and do not directly correlate to any benefits received from government.
Therefore, the most libertarian and sensible solution is land value "tax," or rather, user fee for use the Earth's space and resources.
Totally untaxing labor, profits, sales, trade, and (at the local govt. level) real estate improvements, will remove a tremendous dead weight from the economy as we cease to penalize productive work and the efficiencies of trade.
Rather than taxing the above, we would collect rent on the use of resources, according to their market value. Economists have shown that unlike traditional taxes, shifting to land value revenue (LVR, like "lever"):
- is fairest since it corresponds to both ability to pay and benefits received;
- is most efficient since it does not penalize any productive activity;
- is a free-market source of revenue since one can choose what amount to pay (you choose where to live) and land values are set by the market.
- tends to downsize government, since governments would limit their activities to those that would support higher land values.
- tends to decentralize government, since most land is subject to a local and/or State jurisdiction.
Many other benefits -- see The Founders' Plan
If we are ever going to muster up the political will to radically revamp the federal tax system -- or even abolish the IRS and other unneeded federal bureaucracies -- then we can transition to a full LVR-based system, beginning with the federal government.
- Economist Fred Foldvary recommends an amendment to the united States Constitution prohibiting or phasing out all productivity taxes (income, sales, excise, tariffs, VAT) and replacing them with LVR. The government must live off the land. No fining people for working or for creating jobs. No revenue agency reaching into your pocket and bank account. No punishing people for buying or selling stuff. The fedgov would have to depend on revenues from things such as oil and mineral rights and extraction, grazing, fishing and hunting rights, other user fees, the use of interstate conduits such as railroads and pipelines, and EM spectrum. (Nominally, the people own the airwaves as a commons, but we are a lousy landlord -- giving away beachfront EM properties to big corporations like AT&T.)
- Simultaneously, be radically downsizing and decentralizing FG functions to the Constitutionally authorized entities (States, localities, or individuals). Over time, the abolition of deadweight taxation will radically change the economic landscape, such that many government programs purporting to "help the disadvantaged" will be unnecessary anyway.
- If any additional revenue is thought to be needed (such as for emergencies), require the fedgov to go through the States, like in old times (apportionment). In the past, the FG was free to levy taxes in this fashion and to specify land as the asset taxed.
- Have federally owned land within States assessed as if for taxation, to illustrate the tremendous amount of land value preempted by the fedgov which could instead be going into State and local coffers. Showing people what they are losing would spur more intense scrutiny of Federal activities.
- Return a portion of proceeds directly to citizens. Study Alaska, which actually is able to pay a yearly dividend based on natural resource development. This was spurred by "a desire to put some oil revenues out of direct political control" and directly benefit the People. A simplified version of the Alaska Permanent Fund could be operated by the fedgov (for rents/royalties on federal lands) and by States (for State lands).
Also see Foldvary, The Ultimate Tax Reform.
It was your "monopolization of land" comment. There is more then enough land to go around for each of us to get our own if we desire it and pay for it.
If you want to charge rent to land owners through government taxation, you do not believe in private property or free markets. You can't have it both ways.
No I did not call him a commie. In fact, read the quote again yourself. He says it is the LEAST BAD tax...he was NOT advocating it. The lesser of evils is still evil.
Shall we call Rationalization Man so he can save the village?
If you want to charge rent to land owners through government taxation, you do not believe in private property or free markets. You can't have it both ways.
No I did not call him a commie. In fact, read the quote again yourself. He says it is the LEAST BAD tax...he was NOT advocating it. The lesser of evils is still evil.
Shall we call Rationalization Man so he can save the village?
Nice rationalization.
Land is the foundation in which we can create said wealth. Tax the land, you hamper the ability to create said wealth and you remove the incentive to do so.
By your own logic we should tax every re-sale item because you didn't create that wealth, someone else did.
Yay for rationalizations. sarc/
By that, I mean...Can we please stop trying to figure out the least offensive way to steal from others? It's pretty retarted to be honest. It's baboon like.
Land is the foundation in which we can create said wealth. Tax the land, you hamper the ability to create said wealth and you remove the incentive to do so.
By your own logic we should tax every re-sale item because you didn't create that wealth, someone else did.
Yay for rationalizations. sarc/
By that, I mean...Can we please stop trying to figure out the least offensive way to steal from others? It's pretty retarted to be honest. It's baboon like.
Ahh, huge land & resource giveaways to crony corporations! That's the stuff America is made of. That's the stuff LVR is meant to stop.
Average Joe does not benefit from the status quo. BigCronyCo, Inc. and "Speculators 'R' Us" are the prime beneficiaries.
See "The Menace of Privilege" p.37
at Google Books
At Archive.org
LVT/LVR (I prefer the latter) would leave the land title -- with all the rights of secure tenure, privacy, control, transferability, etc. -- in private hands. Only the rent becomes public revenue. This is what enables taxes (including the tax on buildings) to be abolished.
You pay rent for land anyway; either as part of a lease agreement or a mortgage. (And generally, a negligible amount as part of the real estate tax.) The LVR system just shifts this land rent, which we already pay, from being mainly a subsidy to private parties and mortgage lenders, over to a source of funds for your local government. This funds government to maintain the services that largely put the value in the land in the first place. In reality, it's like a company reinvesting its profit.
And to extend the corporate analogy: if a jurisdiction so chooses, it can also pay out a portion of its surplus as an equal dividend to all "shareholders", i.e., citizens.)
Under the LVR system, tax incidence is transparent and 100% fair. Essentially, you'd pay proportionate to the value of land held. (Paying for what you get is a basic free market principle.) However, it's not on improvements, only on land. No one gets penalized for building things. (Pay for what you take, not what you make!)
This means there's no incentive to speculate on land, but rather, to building and to do useful things with it.
Removal of negative incentives and restoration of positive incentives is all the "stimulus" our economy needs to thrive. LVR does both of these things.
Average Joe does not benefit from the status quo. BigCronyCo, Inc. and "Speculators 'R' Us" are the prime beneficiaries.
See "The Menace of Privilege" p.37
at Google Books
At Archive.org
LVT/LVR (I prefer the latter) would leave the land title -- with all the rights of secure tenure, privacy, control, transferability, etc. -- in private hands. Only the rent becomes public revenue. This is what enables taxes (including the tax on buildings) to be abolished.
You pay rent for land anyway; either as part of a lease agreement or a mortgage. (And generally, a negligible amount as part of the real estate tax.) The LVR system just shifts this land rent, which we already pay, from being mainly a subsidy to private parties and mortgage lenders, over to a source of funds for your local government. This funds government to maintain the services that largely put the value in the land in the first place. In reality, it's like a company reinvesting its profit.
And to extend the corporate analogy: if a jurisdiction so chooses, it can also pay out a portion of its surplus as an equal dividend to all "shareholders", i.e., citizens.)
Under the LVR system, tax incidence is transparent and 100% fair. Essentially, you'd pay proportionate to the value of land held. (Paying for what you get is a basic free market principle.) However, it's not on improvements, only on land. No one gets penalized for building things. (Pay for what you take, not what you make!)
This means there's no incentive to speculate on land, but rather, to building and to do useful things with it.
Removal of negative incentives and restoration of positive incentives is all the "stimulus" our economy needs to thrive. LVR does both of these things.
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Travlyr
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Or they can tax you out of your home under your plan. How is that liberty oriented?
-C-
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What? I can't be reading that right.
E.J.Dodson
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The Economics and the Equity of How Government Ought to Raise Revenue
Wizardwatson wrote:
"I've read Progress and Poverty and I think George's reasoning is sound. It's a tax on rent which, if you understand the Law of Rent, I think is much more fair than some sort of flat sales tax. A sales tax punishes the consumer more than the producer."
E.J.Dodson here:
We agree on the reasoning provided by Henry George, a perspective that had a long history even when George came to it in the 1870s. A full appreciation of the law of rent leads one to view "rent" as by nature a societal claim on production and not a tax on legitimate private property. This position comes out clearly reading Adam Smith and David Ricardo, as well as Henry George.
The only sales tax that can be justified is a sales tax on the sale of land because land only has a sales price because society fails to collect the full annual rental value of land, the net after any property tax capitalized into a selling price by market forces.
***
Wizardwatson wrote:
I take George's idea even further. I think there should be a flat tax on wealth itself. This to me, after all I've looked at, seems to me the most fair. You could tax people on their average daily/monthly/yearly net worth. This would allow a flat percentage to be taken from everyone equally and wouldn't be a burden on the lower class any more than the upper class and producers.
E.J. Dodson here;
This idea fails to distinguish between assets individuals have produced or acquired by payment to the producer (e.g., buildings, machinery, any sort of tangible asset) and assets are not produced by labor and/or capital goods (e.g., nature, of course, and financial assets which are, in effect, claims on what we produce rather than material assets). Far better, I argue, to institute a truly progressive form of individual income tax, one that greatly reduces or eliminates the taxation of income flows earned by producing goods or providing services and raises most revenue from income derived from speculative (and inherently nonproductive) investment activities. We could exempt all individual incomes up to the national median, then impose an increase rate on higher ranges of income. At the higher levels of individual income, most is passively derived by speculative investment.
Wizardwatson wrote:
"I've read Progress and Poverty and I think George's reasoning is sound. It's a tax on rent which, if you understand the Law of Rent, I think is much more fair than some sort of flat sales tax. A sales tax punishes the consumer more than the producer."
E.J.Dodson here:
We agree on the reasoning provided by Henry George, a perspective that had a long history even when George came to it in the 1870s. A full appreciation of the law of rent leads one to view "rent" as by nature a societal claim on production and not a tax on legitimate private property. This position comes out clearly reading Adam Smith and David Ricardo, as well as Henry George.
The only sales tax that can be justified is a sales tax on the sale of land because land only has a sales price because society fails to collect the full annual rental value of land, the net after any property tax capitalized into a selling price by market forces.
***
Wizardwatson wrote:
I take George's idea even further. I think there should be a flat tax on wealth itself. This to me, after all I've looked at, seems to me the most fair. You could tax people on their average daily/monthly/yearly net worth. This would allow a flat percentage to be taken from everyone equally and wouldn't be a burden on the lower class any more than the upper class and producers.
E.J. Dodson here;
This idea fails to distinguish between assets individuals have produced or acquired by payment to the producer (e.g., buildings, machinery, any sort of tangible asset) and assets are not produced by labor and/or capital goods (e.g., nature, of course, and financial assets which are, in effect, claims on what we produce rather than material assets). Far better, I argue, to institute a truly progressive form of individual income tax, one that greatly reduces or eliminates the taxation of income flows earned by producing goods or providing services and raises most revenue from income derived from speculative (and inherently nonproductive) investment activities. We could exempt all individual incomes up to the national median, then impose an increase rate on higher ranges of income. At the higher levels of individual income, most is passively derived by speculative investment.
redbluepill
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There certainly is enough land to go around for each of us! However, land is limited. Good land is even more limited. We have poverty because of the lack of access to the land and its resources. The government gives to the powerful what mother nature provides and the rest suckle their teet. The land value tax helps level the playing field.
And Milton Friedman said he LIKED the land tax. I would say that is advocating it.
"Yes, there are taxes I like. For example, the gasoline tax, which pays for highways. You have a user tax. The property tax is one of the least bad taxes, because it's levied on something that cannot be produced — that part that is levied on the land."
http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/quotable_nobels.htm
redbluepill
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The tax is based on the market value. Not what the government decides is the value.
redbluepill
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Many libertarians support the LVT because it creates the least amount of market distortion.
From the Free State Project website (I'm sure you've heard of it) :
"The efficiency argument for land value taxation is that, unlike almost all other taxes, it does not discourage productive activity or distort choices among consumer goods. A tax on wages discourages work effort. The property tax on improvments discourages construction and other improvements. Tariffs on imported goods discourage international trade. But the supply of land is fixed, given by nature. A tax on the value of land (based on its potential use), will not discourage the landowner from making the land available. The owner must pay the same tax regardless of what he does or does not do with the land. It should be noted that the method of assessing land values is crucial; changes in the market value of land attributable to permanent improvements to a site should not be included in the taxable land value."
http://freestateproject.org/about/essay_archive/lvtaxation.php
redbluepill
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“it is the value of the improvements only, and not the Earth itself, that is individual property." - Thomas Paine
http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/underpop/Paine.htm
I guess Mr. Paine is a commie/socialist too...
http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/underpop/Paine.htm
I guess Mr. Paine is a commie/socialist too...
libertybrewcity
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you lost me at "tax".
how about no taxes!
how about no taxes!
Dr.3D
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Whoops... guess I got in the wrong forums.
redbluepill
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'Tax' is really a misnomer imo. Ground rent is a more appropriate term. We would be reimbursing the community for the privilege of keeping a piece of land for ourselves.
