Comment by twoodfin
2 days ago
As far as I can tell, LVT only achieves what it sets out to do if it’s equivalent to market rent.
As in, you never really “own” your land, you’re just renting it from the sovereign. If you can’t make good enough use out of it to afford that rent, you should move on. You can find comments on this thread that make this argument explicitly in terms of “maximizing land use efficiency”.
This was the economic structure of feudalism. It … wasn’t great. Private ownership of land has its own tradeoffs but a few centuries of historical experimentation in both directions has been fairly decisive.
How is that LVT "rent" different from any other traditional property tax being "rent"?
As near as I can tell, it is just a different way of deciding how the property tax burden is levied.
Downtown property gets taxed much more. Un-developed speculation property that doesn't contribute to the community (and derives value from other people's contributions) get taxed at the same rate as nearby developed property.
Property taxes have to be set high enough to fund services: Voters want more services, they pay more property taxes. The policy goal is delivering services the voters want to households and businesses.
LVT is designed to achieve a different policy goal: Maximize the efficiency of land use. So its rates have to be set to achieve that goal and, for example, force grandma to move out of that condo in a newly revitalized downtown so a young tech kid who can pay more & benefit from it more can move in.