Comment by kiba
3 days ago
You overly complicate the situation by targeting one type of actors. If you look at comment around this story, people propose complicated mechanism to hack at the problem instead of looking at the root causes.
It's just land ownership isn't being taxed properly, no matter who owns the land. We homeowners get a free lunch from economic growth and price appreciation of real estate while penalizing capital investment.
The solution is simple if not necessarily easy to implement. Tax land and at a high enough rate, and exclude building and improvements. We'll reap bigger benefits if we reduce taxes on income and capital and eventually phase it out.
Don't tax land, because that will force homeowners to prematurely sell and move into cardboard boxes on the street. Tax gains when selling at a higher rate.