8 ms·

Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me, especially since businesses already pay taxes. I don't

by dinp 3y ago

Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me, especially since businesses already pay taxes. I don't understand the argument of designing a system to hurt a specific business type such as low value businesses. If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even. If desirable high value businesses aren't able to compete with car washes, isn't that the market doing it's thing? Introducing additional property and land value taxes might discourage low value businesses, but what are the 2nd and 3rd order effects of such a change?

lmm 3y ago
> I don't understand the argument of designing a system to hurt a specific business type such as low value businesses. The argument is that good business spots are a limited community resource that it makes sense to tax, like radio spectrum. If you can make good use of the space you're taking up, go ahead, but you should compete fairly with other uses of the space. If anything taxing space use makes more sense than taxing profits; a profitable business is probably one that's serving the community well, whereas a business that takes up space and doesn't generate much profit is no good for anyone. From the article: > “A car wash does not provide a lot of jobs for the community, and they take up a lot of space,” Broska said. “If you want to invest your dollars into a car wash, then God bless you. But at the same time, I’m responsible for 17,500 people and have to be cognizant of their wishes.” > the largely automated facility wasn’t the best use for a prominent Main Street site
- BenFranklin100 3y ago
  To add to this, LVTs encourage more homes near job rich areas of the city. This in turn means more people can live nearby and have a shot at a job.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  > a profitable business is probably one that's serving the community well, whereas a business that takes up space and doesn't generate much profit is no good for anyone. I think that attributes a lot more to profitability than such a metric deserves. Perhaps in a more narrow and ruthlessly capitalistic sense profitability signifies that a business is doing what it's trying to do well, but it's a big leap to get from there to how well its serving whatever is considered to be a community these days. Among other problems, just because some tiny amount of that money conceivably stays around in the region and people can buy stuff does not mean that the cost of the business being there isn't quite a lot higher, hence the term tragedy of the commons and the hollowing out of let's say America
- bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
  > a profitable business is probably one that's serving the community well This argument reminds of the argument googlers to explain why placing paid ads ahead of organic results is better for the user: they say thay if someone can pay more for an ad than means that can get more money from the user, and therefore the user likes it more. Lol No, profit is profit, it doesn't mean anything else.
  - brhsagain 3y ago
    What’s wrong with that argument? Doesn’t getting more money from the user mean that the user is choosing to pay more, which reveals their preference?
    - gotbeans 3y ago
      No, it does not. That the users end up paying more in no way means or should be implied that they _choose_ to pay more. If cheaper options are made less accessible or clearer, and customers are intentionally mislead to more expensive products, as a result they will pay more too.
      - Gormo 2y ago
        But people will not pay more than a product is worth to them. The fact that they are willing to purchase the product at a higher price point indeed does imply that that price point is still lower than the consumption utility of the product for them.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - ufocia 3y ago
        Also, there is a cost associated with searching. Consumers may intentionally forego the effort for perceived low marginal gains (especially in nominal rather than percentage terms, e.g. "I'm not going to waste my time to save a quarter." even if the quarter is a significant percentage difference). This is one of the factors in the success of Amazon. People "value" convenience.
- OJFord 3y ago
  > The argument is that good business spots are a limited community resource that it makes sense to tax, like radio spectrum. If you can make good use of the space you're taking up, go ahead, but you should compete fairly with other uses of the space. If it's really such a prime desirable spot then that would drive up the value of the land to the point that the low value business wouldn't have been able to afford it? I don't understand saying it's such valuable land and detaching that from what a business was actually able to pay for it.
  - ufocia 3y ago
    Low value is not synonymous with low profit. Also, the arguments made against car washes are the same as those made against bank branches which also generate relatively little sales tax. Anyway, if there is a surplus of car washes they will eventually dry up.
    - a_gnostic 3y ago
      Bank branches can be replaced with technology. Maybe the problem of car washes has a similar solution, or maybe it ain't a problem.
  - lmm 2y ago
    > If it's really such a prime desirable spot then that would drive up the value of the land to the point that the low value business wouldn't have been able to afford it? The land continues to appreciate, so the business can hold it based on its value. Especially if they've locked in a mortgage at a low rate. The car wash "business" can profit through land appreciation, which they don't pay any tax on (another flaw in the regulatory regime), and free-ride while the spot becomes more valuable through the efforts of others.
- kriops 3y ago
  You can't just assert that it makes sense when answering why it makes sense. If you are right, then the owner is losing out on money by operating a car wash, which by the way is their moral and legal right. If you think you can provide more value with the same space – offer to buy it.
  - justwool 2y ago
    [flagged]
- Gormo 2y ago
  > The argument is that good business spots are a limited community resource that it makes sense to tax, like radio spectrum. I'm not sure I follow the reasoning here. How does the existence of economic scarcity imply that it makes sense to tax anything? > If you can make good use of the space you're taking up, go ahead, but you should compete fairly with other uses of the space. But that's already inherent in the nature of scarcity -- the more demand there is for a scarce resource, the higher the price is. So businesses making use of high-value prime real estate are already paying more for it. The law of supply and demand already does what you are proposing. How does paying additional fees to a separate institution with its own perverse incentives add anything to the equation? > the largely automated facility wasn’t the best use for a prominent Main Street site This was the personal opinion of a local bureaucrat who thought his personal opinion should be policy. That's why the company is suing.
  - lmm 2y ago
    > I'm not sure I follow the reasoning here. How does the existence of economic scarcity imply that it makes sense to tax anything? Land in the right place is not merely economically scarce, it's economic land. > But that's already inherent in the nature of scarcity -- the more demand there is for a scarce resource, the higher the price is. So businesses making use of high-value prime real estate are already paying more for it. The law of supply and demand already does what you are proposing. Supply and demand doesn't work for land because there's no new supply. No matter how much the price goes up, people aren't going to make more.
    - Gormo 2y ago
      > Land in the right place is not merely economically scarce, it's economic land I don't see how there's anything particularly special about land that warrants construing it as something fundamentally different from any other scarce resource. > Supply and demand doesn't work for land because there's no new supply. I'm not sure that I agree that there is no new supply of land in an economic sense -- developments that increase the productivity of land use are functionally equivalent to those that increase the physical supply -- but regardless, the law of supply and demand operates the same whether the supply on the market is new or old.
KingMachiavelli 3y ago
The theory of (LVT) land value tax is that it replaces other taxes. LVT has less or no dead weight loss so it's a more efficient tax. > If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even. My claim is that the playing field is not currently even rather it is massively in favor for low-capital, low-labor, and low-regulatory businesses (like car washes) and additionally incentives ostensibly designed to encourage real estate development (1031 like-kind, treatment of real estate as depreciating, etc.) are now primarily used to either speculate on existing real estate or build the minimum to gain ownership/interest in speculation. If you take all the cash you have, you can only buy a finite amount of land. If you build a low-capital but profitable business like a car wash, you are only limited by the leverage limits imposed by lenders. > If desirable high value businesses aren't able to compete with car washes, isn't that the market doing it's thing? > but what are the 2nd and 3rd order effects of such a change? Tautology yes, as desired no. Technically yes because the market is shifting towards low-capital and low-regulatory businesses because they have a more predictable ROI. The goal isn't to disfavor the more capital & regular intensive businesses just regulate them. i.e the influx of car washes is the undesired 2nd order effect of some other policy e.g. minimum parking for restaurants and apartments (likely no such rule exists for car washes so now you need less land a car wash vs a restaurant). Raising regular property taxes (land+improvements) is just easier solution than waiting for far-reaching tax reform like LVT. IMO it's better to correct the market even if it means raising taxes overall in the short term.
- presentation 3y ago
  I like Georgism but if business taxes were replaced would internet businesses that don’t need a physical location thereby pay much less taxes than those that do have need for physical location? That does sound kinda lopsided, unless we’re also doing a land value tax on prime domain name real estate.
  - eppp 2y ago
    Internet businesses have physical locations somewhere. Even if they are drop shipping than someone else is paying the land value tax for the warehouses they are shipping from. The land use exists somewhere at some level of the value chain and that somewhere would then be taxed.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me, especially since businesses already pay taxes. And it doesn't sound appealing to me, as an individual. I don't want to feel like a peasant constantly paying a tax to the monarch/state: so at very least the first property an individual owns should be tax free (not annual land value tax / property tax). I happen to live in a country where that's the case (but it's not the reason I moved there): no yearly property tax.
- pjc50 3y ago
  > I don't want to feel like a peasant constantly paying a tax to the monarch/state If you're not paying your dues, why do you think the state should have an obligation to protect you and your property?
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    1. You're assuming they're not paying other types of taxes. 2. That's what states are for.
  - ufocia 3y ago
    The days of merely protecting one's property are long over. At least in the US real estate taxes pay for many services unrelated to safety of the property. For example, closing a real estate tax funded senior center is unlikely to result in an increase in crime. Maybe the seniors themselves would be more vulnerable without a senior center, but I fail to see a general crime spree resulting. If anything the seniors would be watching other people's property and call the cops at any sign of potentially suspicious activity.
  - a_gnostic 2y ago
    The state has ruled time and again; It has no duty to protect you and your property. Warren v. District of Columbia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia Castle Rock v. Gonzales http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales Davidson v. City of Westminster , 32 Cal.3d 197 http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/davidson-v-city-westminster-28281 http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/davidson-v-city-westminst... Hartzler v. City of San Jose (1975) , 46 Cal.App.3d 6 http://www.lawlink.com/research/caselevel3/51629 http://www.lawlink.com/research/caselevel3/51629 Linda Riss v. City of New York http://www2.newpaltz.edu/%7Ezuckerpr/cases/riss.htm http://www2.newpaltz.edu/%7Ezuckerpr/cases/riss.htm DeShaney v. Winnebago County http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeShaney_v._Winnebago_County http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeShaney_v._Winnebago_County Susman v. City of Los Angeles269 Cal. App. 2d 803 http://law.justia.com/cases/california/calapp2d/269/803.html http://law.justia.com/cases/california/calapp2d/269/803.html South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. (How.) 396, 15 L.Ed.433 (1856) http://www.endtimesreport.com/NO_AFFIRMATIVE_DUTY.htm http://www.endtimesreport.com/NO_AFFIRMATIVE_DUTY.htm …and many more! https://archive.is/MbIeH https://archive.is/MbIeH
Arainach 3y ago
>Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me Eternal wealth to those lucky enough to have been born and bought in the past or born to families who bought in the past sounds plenty dystopian to me; pay up regularly or let someone else who will contribute to society step in.
- chrischen 3y ago
  Exactly this. We all would love to be perpetual rent-seekers but it just doesn't work for a proper society. Not to mention land is a finite resource.
  - ufocia 3y ago
    It's less about land availability. There is plenty of land at least in some countries. It's more about desirability. As those in the real estate trade like to say it's all about "location, location, location."
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  Which conflates "contribution to society" with "economic value."
  - Arainach 3y ago
    Paying taxes is literally contributing to society. Owning land is not.
    - Paul-Craft 2y ago
      There are other things that are contributing to society that are not paying taxes.
      - Arainach 2y ago
        And for that theoretical tiny category there are tax deductions and other exceptions to the law (for instance in many jurisdictions sites of religious worship are exempt from property tax). The overwhelming majority of owners do not and should not qualify for this.
VirusNewbie 3y ago
Taking up land is an externality, it’s not something that can be solved with a supply/demand curve. So, we tax it to encourage efficiency since our usual method if encouraging efficiency doesn’t work.
Gormo 2y ago
> If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even. What is even the problem here that needs to be fixed? People have found a business model that is able to generate value from low-cost land that might otherwise lie vacant. Great, more power to them. The idea that people's use of their own property should restricted or manipulated so the government can maximize tax revenue is the epitome of the tail wagging the dog.
bombcar 2y ago
I don't understand myself how LVT wouldn't result in what you see in many "high value" city centers (where business rents are insanely high) - miles and miles of law offices and banks, and not much else.

by dinp 3y ago

lmm 3y ago

> I don't understand the argument of designing a system to hurt a specific business type such as low value businesses. The argument is that good business spots are a limited community resource that it makes sense to tax, like radio spectrum. If you can make good use of the space you're taking up, go ahead, but you should compete fairly with other uses of the space. If anything taxing space use makes more sense than taxing profits; a profitable business is probably one that's serving the community well, whereas a business that takes up space and doesn't generate much profit is no good for anyone. From the article: > “A car wash does not provide a lot of jobs for the community, and they take up a lot of space,” Broska said. “If you want to invest your dollars into a car wash, then God bless you. But at the same time, I’m responsible for 17,500 people and have to be cognizant of their wishes.” > the largely automated facility wasn’t the best use for a prominent Main Street site

BenFranklin100 3y ago
To add to this, LVTs encourage more homes near job rich areas of the city. This in turn means more people can live nearby and have a shot at a job.
brailsafe 3y ago
> a profitable business is probably one that's serving the community well, whereas a business that takes up space and doesn't generate much profit is no good for anyone. I think that attributes a lot more to profitability than such a metric deserves. Perhaps in a more narrow and ruthlessly capitalistic sense profitability signifies that a business is doing what it's trying to do well, but it's a big leap to get from there to how well its serving whatever is considered to be a community these days. Among other problems, just because some tiny amount of that money conceivably stays around in the region and people can buy stuff does not mean that the cost of the business being there isn't quite a lot higher, hence the term tragedy of the commons and the hollowing out of let's say America
bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
> a profitable business is probably one that's serving the community well This argument reminds of the argument googlers to explain why placing paid ads ahead of organic results is better for the user: they say thay if someone can pay more for an ad than means that can get more money from the user, and therefore the user likes it more. Lol No, profit is profit, it doesn't mean anything else.
- brhsagain 3y ago
  What’s wrong with that argument? Doesn’t getting more money from the user mean that the user is choosing to pay more, which reveals their preference?
  - gotbeans 3y ago
    No, it does not. That the users end up paying more in no way means or should be implied that they _choose_ to pay more. If cheaper options are made less accessible or clearer, and customers are intentionally mislead to more expensive products, as a result they will pay more too.
    - Gormo 2y ago
      But people will not pay more than a product is worth to them. The fact that they are willing to purchase the product at a higher price point indeed does imply that that price point is still lower than the consumption utility of the product for them.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - ufocia 3y ago
      Also, there is a cost associated with searching. Consumers may intentionally forego the effort for perceived low marginal gains (especially in nominal rather than percentage terms, e.g. "I'm not going to waste my time to save a quarter." even if the quarter is a significant percentage difference). This is one of the factors in the success of Amazon. People "value" convenience.
OJFord 3y ago
> The argument is that good business spots are a limited community resource that it makes sense to tax, like radio spectrum. If you can make good use of the space you're taking up, go ahead, but you should compete fairly with other uses of the space. If it's really such a prime desirable spot then that would drive up the value of the land to the point that the low value business wouldn't have been able to afford it? I don't understand saying it's such valuable land and detaching that from what a business was actually able to pay for it.
- ufocia 3y ago
  Low value is not synonymous with low profit. Also, the arguments made against car washes are the same as those made against bank branches which also generate relatively little sales tax. Anyway, if there is a surplus of car washes they will eventually dry up.
  - a_gnostic 3y ago
    Bank branches can be replaced with technology. Maybe the problem of car washes has a similar solution, or maybe it ain't a problem.
- lmm 2y ago
  > If it's really such a prime desirable spot then that would drive up the value of the land to the point that the low value business wouldn't have been able to afford it? The land continues to appreciate, so the business can hold it based on its value. Especially if they've locked in a mortgage at a low rate. The car wash "business" can profit through land appreciation, which they don't pay any tax on (another flaw in the regulatory regime), and free-ride while the spot becomes more valuable through the efforts of others.
kriops 3y ago
You can't just assert that it makes sense when answering why it makes sense. If you are right, then the owner is losing out on money by operating a car wash, which by the way is their moral and legal right. If you think you can provide more value with the same space – offer to buy it.
- justwool 2y ago
  [flagged]
Gormo 2y ago
> The argument is that good business spots are a limited community resource that it makes sense to tax, like radio spectrum. I'm not sure I follow the reasoning here. How does the existence of economic scarcity imply that it makes sense to tax anything? > If you can make good use of the space you're taking up, go ahead, but you should compete fairly with other uses of the space. But that's already inherent in the nature of scarcity -- the more demand there is for a scarce resource, the higher the price is. So businesses making use of high-value prime real estate are already paying more for it. The law of supply and demand already does what you are proposing. How does paying additional fees to a separate institution with its own perverse incentives add anything to the equation? > the largely automated facility wasn’t the best use for a prominent Main Street site This was the personal opinion of a local bureaucrat who thought his personal opinion should be policy. That's why the company is suing.
- lmm 2y ago
  > I'm not sure I follow the reasoning here. How does the existence of economic scarcity imply that it makes sense to tax anything? Land in the right place is not merely economically scarce, it's economic land. > But that's already inherent in the nature of scarcity -- the more demand there is for a scarce resource, the higher the price is. So businesses making use of high-value prime real estate are already paying more for it. The law of supply and demand already does what you are proposing. Supply and demand doesn't work for land because there's no new supply. No matter how much the price goes up, people aren't going to make more.
  - Gormo 2y ago
    > Land in the right place is not merely economically scarce, it's economic land I don't see how there's anything particularly special about land that warrants construing it as something fundamentally different from any other scarce resource. > Supply and demand doesn't work for land because there's no new supply. I'm not sure that I agree that there is no new supply of land in an economic sense -- developments that increase the productivity of land use are functionally equivalent to those that increase the physical supply -- but regardless, the law of supply and demand operates the same whether the supply on the market is new or old.

KingMachiavelli 3y ago

The theory of (LVT) land value tax is that it replaces other taxes. LVT has less or no dead weight loss so it's a more efficient tax. > If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even. My claim is that the playing field is not currently even rather it is massively in favor for low-capital, low-labor, and low-regulatory businesses (like car washes) and additionally incentives ostensibly designed to encourage real estate development (1031 like-kind, treatment of real estate as depreciating, etc.) are now primarily used to either speculate on existing real estate or build the minimum to gain ownership/interest in speculation. If you take all the cash you have, you can only buy a finite amount of land. If you build a low-capital but profitable business like a car wash, you are only limited by the leverage limits imposed by lenders. > If desirable high value businesses aren't able to compete with car washes, isn't that the market doing it's thing? > but what are the 2nd and 3rd order effects of such a change? Tautology yes, as desired no. Technically yes because the market is shifting towards low-capital and low-regulatory businesses because they have a more predictable ROI. The goal isn't to disfavor the more capital & regular intensive businesses just regulate them. i.e the influx of car washes is the undesired 2nd order effect of some other policy e.g. minimum parking for restaurants and apartments (likely no such rule exists for car washes so now you need less land a car wash vs a restaurant). Raising regular property taxes (land+improvements) is just easier solution than waiting for far-reaching tax reform like LVT. IMO it's better to correct the market even if it means raising taxes overall in the short term.

presentation 3y ago
I like Georgism but if business taxes were replaced would internet businesses that don’t need a physical location thereby pay much less taxes than those that do have need for physical location? That does sound kinda lopsided, unless we’re also doing a land value tax on prime domain name real estate.
- eppp 2y ago
  Internet businesses have physical locations somewhere. Even if they are drop shipping than someone else is paying the land value tax for the warehouses they are shipping from. The land use exists somewhere at some level of the value chain and that somewhere would then be taxed.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

> Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me, especially since businesses already pay taxes. And it doesn't sound appealing to me, as an individual. I don't want to feel like a peasant constantly paying a tax to the monarch/state: so at very least the first property an individual owns should be tax free (not annual land value tax / property tax). I happen to live in a country where that's the case (but it's not the reason I moved there): no yearly property tax.

pjc50 3y ago
> I don't want to feel like a peasant constantly paying a tax to the monarch/state If you're not paying your dues, why do you think the state should have an obligation to protect you and your property?
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  1. You're assuming they're not paying other types of taxes. 2. That's what states are for.
- ufocia 3y ago
  The days of merely protecting one's property are long over. At least in the US real estate taxes pay for many services unrelated to safety of the property. For example, closing a real estate tax funded senior center is unlikely to result in an increase in crime. Maybe the seniors themselves would be more vulnerable without a senior center, but I fail to see a general crime spree resulting. If anything the seniors would be watching other people's property and call the cops at any sign of potentially suspicious activity.
- a_gnostic 2y ago
  The state has ruled time and again; It has no duty to protect you and your property. Warren v. District of Columbia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia Castle Rock v. Gonzales http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales Davidson v. City of Westminster , 32 Cal.3d 197 http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/davidson-v-city-westminster-28281 http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/davidson-v-city-westminst... Hartzler v. City of San Jose (1975) , 46 Cal.App.3d 6 http://www.lawlink.com/research/caselevel3/51629 http://www.lawlink.com/research/caselevel3/51629 Linda Riss v. City of New York http://www2.newpaltz.edu/%7Ezuckerpr/cases/riss.htm http://www2.newpaltz.edu/%7Ezuckerpr/cases/riss.htm DeShaney v. Winnebago County http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeShaney_v._Winnebago_County http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeShaney_v._Winnebago_County Susman v. City of Los Angeles269 Cal. App. 2d 803 http://law.justia.com/cases/california/calapp2d/269/803.html http://law.justia.com/cases/california/calapp2d/269/803.html South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. (How.) 396, 15 L.Ed.433 (1856) http://www.endtimesreport.com/NO_AFFIRMATIVE_DUTY.htm http://www.endtimesreport.com/NO_AFFIRMATIVE_DUTY.htm …and many more! https://archive.is/MbIeH https://archive.is/MbIeH

Arainach 3y ago

>Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me Eternal wealth to those lucky enough to have been born and bought in the past or born to families who bought in the past sounds plenty dystopian to me; pay up regularly or let someone else who will contribute to society step in.

chrischen 3y ago
Exactly this. We all would love to be perpetual rent-seekers but it just doesn't work for a proper society. Not to mention land is a finite resource.
- ufocia 3y ago
  It's less about land availability. There is plenty of land at least in some countries. It's more about desirability. As those in the real estate trade like to say it's all about "location, location, location."
Paul-Craft 3y ago
Which conflates "contribution to society" with "economic value."
- Arainach 3y ago
  Paying taxes is literally contributing to society. Owning land is not.
  - Paul-Craft 2y ago
    There are other things that are contributing to society that are not paying taxes.
    - Arainach 2y ago
      And for that theoretical tiny category there are tax deductions and other exceptions to the law (for instance in many jurisdictions sites of religious worship are exempt from property tax). The overwhelming majority of owners do not and should not qualify for this.

VirusNewbie 3y ago

Taking up land is an externality, it’s not something that can be solved with a supply/demand curve. So, we tax it to encourage efficiency since our usual method if encouraging efficiency doesn’t work.

Gormo 2y ago

> If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even. What is even the problem here that needs to be fixed? People have found a business model that is able to generate value from low-cost land that might otherwise lie vacant. Great, more power to them. The idea that people's use of their own property should restricted or manipulated so the government can maximize tax revenue is the epitome of the tail wagging the dog.

bombcar 2y ago

I don't understand myself how LVT wouldn't result in what you see in many "high value" city centers (where business rents are insanely high) - miles and miles of law offices and banks, and not much else.