Taxation: The good, the bad and the ugly.

The very idea that the rich only pay taxes indirectly threw some complicated situation where their personal actions cause others to actually pay more the the government is absurd. Not only should the rich pay taxes directly to the government, their rate of taxation should be higher than the less rich. IE a progressive income tax is the best way to raise revenue and is the most fair. As it is, in a mature economy such as the US land use is regulated by the government and the concept of the land baron is passe'. Some people with large holdings of land can through economy of scale raise many times more grain than 100 smaller holdings, none of which justify the purchase of the expensive farm machinery needed to maximize yield. "Economy of scale" sometimes looked like the name was invented for large farms.

 

Let me add the fact that the rich who are land owners do pay land tax, only on the land including improvements, if they own land.

 

I think the most important issue about what you have described as a proper tax system is that you don't believe 1 form of tax fits all. With this I agree. We have a form of "LVT" in the US in that land is taxed but in most locations the assessment includes improvements on the land such that the tax is more reasonably associated with the total value of the land. We also have progressive income tax which also reasonably, taxes the rich at a higher rate than the less wealthy. Where I disagree with you is your take on sales and fuel taxes. Granted they are "regressive" in that the poor pays the same tax for a given item $ for $ as the rich man, but keep in mind the rich consume more thus paying many more $$s in tax than the poor man. Likewise with fuel. Though you are correct in that fuel taxes make it much harder on the poor, it acts as a limiting agent as well as a source of revenue, thus reducing the use of carbon based fuels to some extent.

I also agree with your stated concept of private property, be that property an automobile or a parcel of land. If you buy it, it is yours to do with as you like. Most states manage land by taxing it in accordance with its likely use, so the idea that speculators hold huge tracts of land kept idle speculation on its future increase in value is absurd.

Keep up the good work.

 

The problem with fuel taxes being fixed such that everyone pays the same price at the pump makes in harder for the least wealthy among us. The poor tend to be unable to buy newer low fuel consumption vehicles thus pay a larger % of their income to fill up than does it cost the more wealthy. That is very regressive and it can be replaced with a specific and targeted progressive income tax to replace the lost fuel tax collections. (ALL regressive taxes like VAT or Sales taxes should be eliminated and revenues made up from a progressive individual income tax.)

Some people call "fair tax" a one % (size) fits all. I disagree strongly, and the only people who believe that are the rich who will pay less tax. Progressive taxation is a must. Even if we exempt all incomes below $50K then he who has a taxable income of $100K will end up paying the same % of his income as a person with a taxable income of $1million. Recent studies have suggested that with a flat income tax exempting the lowest 50% of our wage earners will have to be between 24% and 35% initially, possibly going down to around 20% over time. I still do not believe that is a "fair" tax.

I do believe that our government collects too much tax and performs too many functions at the federal level; but even if we change that with the fed gov doing only less and the states and individuals doing more, the same amount of revenue will still have to be raised. All we would be doing is shifting the expenditures to a different level of government. It is my opinion that states and local governments know better what their citizens need and want and those services/functions should take place at that level.

What I particularly like about you and SOME of the other posters is your civility, and I detest the tendency toward rudeness of some others.

 

Almost none of our money is government created. It is almost all created by private banksters wielding a government-issued privilege of issuing debt money by lending it into existence in order to charge interest on it.

Please inform yourself about the issue.

 

You are wise not to consider yourself a Geoist. I don't like the regressive taxes and you are right in that land is taxed in almost all jurisdictions except that the assessments include the improvements.

 

Taxes are the price of civilization. Without them, wait and see how long it takes for us to fall into Anarchy. The real kicker is how to implement them effectively.

 

You just pile absurdity on absurdity. Owning land makes people more wealthy, not less wealthy. You know this. Ownership of land is more unequally distributed than income, yet you advocate progressive income taxation, a tax system that does not tax wealth but rather income, and does not distinguish between income justly earned by productive contribution and income obtained unjustly, by dint of privilege. You advocate such a system because you obtain your own income by dint of privilege, not productive contribution.

No, it's very reasonable, just as a store that charges people according to what they take home rather than how much money they have is not screwed up but very reasonable.

Fact.

And everywhere else.

I've already agreed that fair compensation should be given: a framed picture of a guillotine to remind each landowner of how mercifully he has been treated.

 

You know that is false. He is depriving them of the land that nature provided for all.

It indisputably forces the productive to subsidize the landowner, because the landowner is getting something for nothing. That requires the productive to get nothing for something.

It is your garbage that is absurd.

Because they have not paid a landowner's extortion demand, and are thus deprived of access to the road. You know this.

The landowner qua landowner is always a pure parasite.

Yes, of course it is. Richard Carey is an evil, lying sack of $#!+, just as Murray Rothbard was when he produced his despicably dishonest anti-geoist screed.

You mean, aside from the fact that they have always done so, for all of recorded history?

Landowners deliberately abrogate others' rights without making just compensation. That is evil. Period.

Fact.

I know I have stated the facts and their inescapable logical implications.

 

<yawn> Is it likewise "totally unrealistic" that a modestly wealthy man who takes a loaf of bread home from the grocerty store pays for it, while a very rich man who takes nothing pays nothing?

You haven't figured out what LVT is. It is not a compulsory payment. It is a voluntary payment. It is merely paid to the community in return for the value the community creates, instead of being paid to a greedy, idle, privileged landowner for doing nothing.

 

He showed no such thing.

I have repeatedly proved both you and dnsmith flat, outright wrong as a matter of objective fact.

You know that is false. First of all, there was no market in the land to enable measurement of its value: possession was simply assigned, and value estimated. LVT cannot be implemented in the absence of a market in land, and cannot be effective unless that market allocates the land. Neither condition was met in the Indian case. Secondly, the land was not taxed by value but according to a formula relating value to area. Mod edit: sorry; have to find another way to phrase that last part.

 

Investment doesn't benefit from the national economy, it benefits it. How do you think economic activity occurs at all?

Also yeah the economy benefits from infrastructure investment, but the vast bulk of taxes are going to entitlements so the idea that rich people should pay more because they benefit more from the government is absurd.

(for the record I support progressive taxation, so long as investment and like cap gains etc. are exempt from it, just because it's a more efficient way to collect income and rich people suffer less from high taxes than poor people, annoying though they are to everyone).

There's a pretty consistent negative correlation between property taxes and land values (and thus property values). For instance California, which capped its property taxes in 1973, has some of the highest property values in the nation despite its relatively low population density (compared to other states with expensive land such as Connecticut or Rhode Island).

So, LVT and most property taxes have zero long-term effect on anyone's purchasing power. Basically the more people are paying in LVT the less they have to pay for the actual property.

 

No government -- and no landowner -- has ever created a location.

Instead of from the landowners who pocket all the benefits. Right.

It means the productive have been robbed and the money given to landowners in return for nthing.

The premium issue is the publicly created value that the landowners pocket. That is what infrastructure spending is all about.

 

LVT is always the best way to tax; it is that simple; and there is exactly one reason we do not use it more: the greed, dishonesty, and evil of landowners.

Strawman.

I.e., it is LVT and its opposite, as I already explained to you.

I have stipulated that just compensation should be given: a framed picture of a guillotine to remind each landowner of how mercifully he has been treated.

That is certain and indisputable.

We recognize that very well. Why lie about what we have plainly written?

Yes, it is.

False. Taxing improvements prevents highest and best use.

No one can ever rightly own land, so the just compensation for losing the privilege is nothing.

Your opinions are not the problem. Mod edit

There can never be a right to ownership of land, any more than of the sky, the alphabet, or human beings.

As long as the rent is recovered.

But land can't be privately owned, other than in the same trivial and irrelevant sense that human beings were once privately owned: i.e., legally.

But rightful private property in the products of labor can never be based on anything but an act of production, and private "property" in land is never based on anything but an act of forcible appropriation.

Only when law thus unjustly assigns them to him. Certainly never rightfully.

You again state your position that income earned by productive contribution should be taxed, so that income obtained by dint of unjust privilege can be retained by its appropriator. That position is evil.

True, not all jurisdictions function purely as landowner subsidization machines.

 

Wrong. It is landowners who benefit from entitlement spending, not the putative recipients. Medicare spending only benefits you if you live near doctors, hospitals, etc., and you have to pay a landowner full market value for access to them. That's one reason why land near hospitals is so expensive. To spend a welfare or Social Security check or use food stamps, you have to be near grocery stores, etc., and you have to pay a landowner full market value for access to them.

As the Henry George Theorem proves, all government spending on desired services, infrastructure AND entitlements that is not wasted through incompetence or stolen through corrruption goes to landowners.

No, LVT reduces the purchasing power of landowners, and increases the purchasing power of consumers and the productive.

AND THE LESS THEY ARE PAYING IN OTHER TAXES!!!

So LVT allows us to pay for government only once, instead of twice.

Hello?

 

I was gonna make a point by point rebuttal, but...

I support LVT too, man. Can we not argue about this?

 

Then welcome, and take a bow! You are one of a small but growing band of true heroes.

Works for me.

 

No matter how much you object, the fact is LVT is only one type of tax and it does not target rich non-landowners as much as it does less wealthy land owners. It is also a fact that there is no "one size fits all" TYPE of taxation.

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Your facts are tainted by bad facts. The real facts are that most land owners are decent people who do not repress anyone because they own land and owning land absolutely does not deprive anyone of anything.

 

No one pays LVT voluntarily. It is extortion by the state and is not even nearly as effective as property tax which includes improvements. In addition it does not properly address taxing the very wealthy who choose not to own land. Now if it was a WVT, wealth value tax it may become significant as a tax but still it is not adequately progressive to insure that those who make the most, pay the highest rate of tax.

 

I posted a quote from a source which clearly showed a tax on the VALUE of land was instituted.

As an objective fact you have proved nothing, not even once.

Of course the value was estimated. All land values are estimated, even when as in India similar land did have a market price.

 

He must have had an evil smirk on his face as he said it. My stomach twists and turns reading that quote.

 

Every landowner deprives everyone else of the land he occupies. If the landowner wasn't there, I could occupy the land. But since the landowner IS there, I'm deprived of it and so is everyone else. There is no way around that.

 

Not in the sense that they created the actual land, but in the sense that they created an infrastructure ready place for business to locate so like it or not, some localities have "CREATED" industrial parks which they allow business to use without paying any tax.

Wrong! The localities get jobs and collect taxes from the wages of those who get jobs. Everyone who works get the benefit as well as the government gets the benefit from Income and sales taxes.

Absolutely false! Land owners work hand in hand with all other entities to furnish wealth to all. Robber land barons tend to be a thing of the past.

There is nothing wrong with landowners making a profit, except of course in your imagination.

 

You have used a lot of words, frequently rude ones, yet you have not EXPLAINED anything of value and you have proved nothing. Land owners who paid for land should get proper compensation for their land being taken, no less than the purchase price paid and more as the land becomes more valuable.