Imagine:
1) I'm the owner of a single family home
2) My income drops to roughly zero because of AI
3) My property values go through the roof
4) I now owe 2.5% of these sky-rocketing property values every year, to be paid from my non-existent income
Doesn't this scenario lead to me either selling my "gifted" shares to pay property taxes, or ending up a renter at best and homeless at worst? I can imagine this proposal leading to greater concentrations of wealth rather than spreading it around.
A variant of this is responsible for the rise of oligarchy during de-Sovietization in Russia. Citizens were given shares of state companies, but people's basic needs weren't met. This resulted in most shares being sold to whomever would buy them for any amount of money or basic resources. This, along with the general power vacuum, led to the rapid consolidation of massive amounts of power in the hands of whoever managed to wield local power for their benefit at the time--those who became the oligarchs.
Bill Browder writes a bit about it in his book, Red Notice. The book is also a great cautionary tale that the whole narrative that we can spread democratic ideals by making business deals with with corrupt/despotism regimes is smoke. It leads to more corruption, less moral authority, and further empowered despots.
If your property value doubles and you lose your job, why wouldn't you sell your property for a massive gain, take that money and buy a new house somewhere cheaper, thereby avoiding the tax issue entirely? Seems like a situation where you want to have your cake and eat it, too.
A property's value doubling isn't a one-off event, it'd be widespread and continuous. That cheaper place's value will rise proportionally, and now they've the same problem, except with an overall lower quality of life now that they're living in a worse property.
My property has doubled due to an incoming commuter rail line... which means my taxes will go up. I used to have the cheapest house in town, which means if I have to move, I have to find a smaller house in a less desirable neighborhood, or end up renting, then homeless as the rents rise.
The rich will get richer, and the rest of us will get poorer.
Even without the hypothetical AI effect on income, this is a proposal which will tax you 100% of the value of your property over a 40 year period whilst over the same period YC's LPs and founders will have paid just 2.5% of the [much higher] value of their companies.
Now there are efficiency arguments in favour of taxing land to encourage its use and not taxing productive enterprises or their investors too heavily, but this is pretty extreme...
> which will tax you 100% of the value of your property
If it's a property tax, yes. If it's a land tax, no. Under land tax you tax the "ground rent" value of the land, not what's built on it. "Ground rent" is what it costs to rent out your land if it was an empty lot with nothing on it. Property tax and land tax are very different things with very different effects.
The Georgist land value (which Altman suggests might be more practically replaced by a system linked to actual property transaction values) is still going to be a sufficiently large proportion of the value of a typical home to ensure pretty much anyone not living in a multistorey tenement block is paying massively higher tax rates on their home than anyone pays on a YC company.
The entire point of land value taxes is to turn land into a liability. You don't get to benefit from the accomplishments of other people. You only get to benefit from your own accomplishments e.g. by building a multistory tenant block and renting it out.
How are we determining that the land value increased because of speculation, and not because the land continues to become exponentially more valuable do to its location in a popular area?
Property values generally rise because an area has a very attractive jobs market. Overall, it's a benefit to society to incentivize people with no income to move out an area with a lower cost of living. This incentivizes more people move there and do productive work, which can be taxed and distributed.
I just find something very cold and socially undesirable in the idea that somebody can spend a lifetime putting in the work to get the home they want, only to be forced out because "society" decides they are no longer productive. I'm no NIMBY—those people shouldn't have the right to stop others from developing their own properties—but I'm not sure I like the idea of economic incentives kicking the least productive to the curb because it's "efficient".
> because "society" decides they are no longer productive.
You have to consider the benchmark. Do people deserve to live in a castle if they aren't productive enough?
Living in a single family home in the middle of NYC requires a whole lot of productivity because you are literally displacing dozens of other people. You have to be as productive as all those people combined to be worthy of replacing them.
So by your accounting, if I purchase a home in Stockton, CA right now, then in 40 years when I'm old and can't afford the taxes on my lifelong home because Stockton is huge then, I'm to be kicked out for a more productive use?
More likely, the government would place a lien on your property, and when you die or sell your home, the profits would be used to pay for the deferred tax, rather than simply accruing to you or your heirs.
And why should the home I paid for be auctioned by the government? How is that fair for anyone but the wealthy? You're saying that only the rich can stay in one place, everyone else has to move to the middle of no where or risk losing it all to said rich folk who will buy my property at auction by the government.
In my original comment, I stated "when you die or sell your home", so I don't see why anyone would have to move.
If you think people shouldn't have to pay extra when their land becomes more valuable, I don't see why they should still get the profits when their land becomes more valuable. That's basically socializing the costs, but privatizing the profits, which is obviously a bad thing to do.
If being taxed 2.5% a year counts as being "forced out," then staying in a highly productive area of land indefinitely is "forcing" people who can otherwise move to your house to stay poor. Never mind that it's the wealthy are the ones who benefit from elimination of property taxes.
It's society that makes the property valuable in the first place, so it makes sense to pay society back. The firefighters, schools, and social workers in your area need to get paid extra to account for the cost of living increases. That money should come from the people benefit the most from their services, the property owners.
> If being taxed 2.5% a year counts as being "forced out," then staying in a highly productive area of land indefinitely is "forcing" people who can otherwise move to your house to stay poor.
“Otherwise” is doing a lot of work here. The people can’t “otherwise” move there because the person isn’t selling, that’s the idea. Taxing people so they are forced to sell is forcing them out. Not taxing people so they are not forced to sell is letting them stay there. You’ve yet to explain why the people who do live there have less of a claim to the house than the wealthier people who would buy it from them.
> Never mind that it's the wealthy are the ones who benefit from elimination of property taxes.
Yes nevermind that since its not even true.
> It's society that makes the property valuable in the first place, so it makes sense to pay society back.
This reifies “society” as a thing-in-itself rather than properly considering society as consisting of the people who own the properties and make them valuable by their ownership, maintenance, and use. Then it equivocates “society” with the actual government that collects the taxes and decides how they are spent (typically routing them to their friends who sell goods and services to the government).
> The firefighters, schools, and social workers in your area need to get paid extra to account for the cost of living increases.
Cost of living increases like land value tax? Like how landlords pass increased taxes and maintenance onto their tenants?
> That money should come from the people benefit the most from their services, the property owners.
Its not at all clear that property owners benefit disproportionately from social services, and they also pay for those services through taxes.
I think most of this recent fascination with Georgism is a result of California tax policy and doesn’t withstand a cursory economic analysis.
Overall, I agree with you that Georgist LVT is nonsense, but overall, I think that an LVT would be an efficient way to raise revenue.
> Taxing people so they are forced to sell is forcing them out.
That's still very much overstretching the word "force." If the government taxes a cigarette factory out of existence, are they "forcing" the workers to move if they need to do so to find another job?
> You’ve yet to explain why the people who do live there have less of a claim to the house than the wealthier people who would buy it from them.
I view this as a meaningless philosophical question. There are so many ways that life can be unfair. Being taxed into selling your home at a huge profit is just not a concern I care about.
> Like how landlords pass increased taxes and maintenance onto their tenants?
This is completely untrue. Rent is solely dependent on supply and demand. Demand is elastic, and supply is very inelastic and even more so in highly desirable cities, so it doesn't get very affected by a tax. If property taxes get passed down to tenants, Prop 13 would have passed the tax savings onto renters, which it clearly has not.
> Its not at all clear that property owners benefit disproportionately from social services, and they also pay for those services through taxes.
Financially, a renter would be fine if their home burns down, becomes surrounded by used needles, or has a terrible school district. The homeowner reaps the financial benefit from these services, so they should expect to pay a share.
> Financially, a renter would be fine if their home burns down, becomes surrounded by used needles, or has a terrible school district.
Thanks for your reply. I think this statement is a good example of how I think your reply misses the point and so I’m not sure we will come to any agreement. Thanks.
> You’ve yet to explain why the people who do live there have less of a claim to the house than the wealthier people who would buy it from them.
You've yet to explain why the people living there have more of a claim to the land than anyone else in society. The model you've proposed is basically "first come first serve" (ie. homesteading principle). Except even that doesn't apply given that some of the land currently in private ownership was previously used by others, who were forced off it, via colonization in North America, and the enclosure acts in Europe. Should we return the land to the descendants of the Native Americans?
Given that land is a scarce good, and access to good land gives substantial benefits to those with access, "first come first serve" simply isn't a workable way to allocate land. Those with land are able to charge rents to those without, and they can pass this privilege down to their heirs, keeping this inequality going.
> Its not at all clear that property owners benefit disproportionately from social services, and they also pay for those services through taxes.
Here's a simple example. Suppose the government decides to build a new transit line going to the edge of the city. The rents and property values along the line will increase. And in most places, income and sales taxes fund at least part of the cost. So renters will pay some of the cost, but get no financial benefit, while also paying increased rents. On the other hand, the landowners will pay some of the cost, but they'll also profit from the increased rents and land values. Essentially, renters pay "twice" for government services: once for the actual service, and then again when the existence of the service leads to higher rents, which are then reaped by landowners.
> I think most of this recent fascination with Georgism is a result of California tax policy and doesn’t withstand a cursory economic analysis.
Basically every economist agrees with the principles behind Georgism, starting from Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and continuing to modern economists like Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz, so I don't really know what you're talking about here.
You should read about the Law of Rent by Ricardo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent), which basically states what I have said here: land rent is equal to the marginal economic advantage, which is obviously not created by the landowner.
> You've yet to explain why the people living there have more of a claim to the land than anyone else in society.
Generally one would ask that the people proposing a change to circumstances assume the burden of proof; it should be obvious why I can’t remove the food from your kitchen and expect you to justify why I should stop.
If you want a more formal argument then its turtles all the way down, I can approach your preferred landowners on the day post-acquisition and use the same procedure to expropriate them, someone else can do the same to me on the next day, ad infinitum.
> The model you've proposed is basically "first come first serve" (ie. homesteading principle). Except even that doesn't apply given that some of the land currently in private ownership was previously used by others, who were forced off it, via colonization in North America, and the enclosure acts in Europe. Should we return the land to the descendants of the Native Americans?
You are aware that many people argue that we should do exactly that, correct? I’m not aware of many people who argue to the contrary, and I’m not sure there is any use in reciting their arguments here.
The expropriation of the Natives is almost universally regarded as a moral wrong in polite society. its fine for you to disagree but I’m at a loss as to why you would assume that I disagree.
> Given that land is a scarce good, and access to good land gives substantial benefits to those with access, "first come first serve" simply isn't a workable way to allocate land.
This is a non sequitur as you’ve failed to explain why one person’s good deal is unworkable for another.
> Those with land are able to charge rents to those without, and they can pass this privilege down to their heirs, keeping this inequality going.
It seems that you’re assuming that inequality is a bad thing. I think inequality is a fact, and the moral implications must be argued for rather than assumed.
> Suppose the government decides to build a new transit line going to the edge of the city. The rents and property values along the line will increase. And in most places, income and sales taxes fund at least part of the cost. So renters will pay some of the cost, but get no financial benefit,
Why aren’t the renters gaining financial benefit from improvements to mass transit in their area? It seems that you’re arguing against the government being able to fund boondoggles from taxes.
> On the other hand, the landowners will pay some of the cost, but they'll also profit from the increased rents and land values. Essentially, renters pay "twice" for government services: once for the actual service, and then again when the existence of the service leads to higher rents, which are then reaped by landowners.
I feel as though you’ve neglected to consider that the renters benefit from mass transit and therefore there’s no reason for them not to be expected to pay for it; and the fact that public infrastructure results in higher land values is covered under the property tax that we already have established. This whole thing could be bypassed by arguing that these types of improvements should be paid by property taxes (excluding sales taxes etc.).
> Basically every economist agrees with the principles behind Georgism, starting from Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and continuing to modern economists like Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz, so I don't really know what you're talking about here.
Yeah if you think this is a reasonable statement of the economic consensus vis a vis Georgism I doubt we can learn much from discussion with each other, nice talking and have a good day. Thanks for the Ricardo link.
I don't really have the energy to respond to all your points (but thank you for making them, they've shown where I was unclear in my writing, or made assumptions that weren't obvious), but I wanted to mention one thing:
> This whole thing could be bypassed by arguing that these types of improvements should be paid by property taxes
This is pretty much the core policy that Georgism advocates for: "Henry George is best known for popularizing the argument that government should be funded by a tax on land rent rather than taxes on labor". The rest is just a way to provide economic/justice based reasons for this policy.
> I now owe 2.5% of these sky-rocketing property values every year
Just as a UBI gives people an income floor, I think that a land tax should come with a personal allowance below which you are exempt.
To do some rough calculations, the US state with the highest population density is New Jersey, at 1,210.1 people per square mile, which equates to 23,038 square feet per person. The average American house size is apparently 2,687 square feet, which is typically shared by multiple people, so the allowance could be comfortably set to maybe 10,000 square feet per person.
The key thing about a land value tax is that it's based on land value, and not land area, so the allowance should also be based on value and not area, for it to work right.
10,000 sq ft in Manhattan is much more valuable than 10,000 sq ft in a rural area, and so it doesn't make sense that both should be treated equally.
As I understand it, the fund would also pay cash. You would get a share of the 2.5% of taxed equities and a share of the 2.5% property taxes. Owners of property with a value over the average would be essentially paying everyone else.
Doesn't this scenario lead to me either selling my "gifted" shares to pay property taxes, or ending up a renter at best and homeless at worst? I can imagine this proposal leading to greater concentrations of wealth rather than spreading it around.