Re: Land, Labour and Capital Taxation....

imouttahere_at_mac.com
Date: 12/30/04 

Date: 30 Dec 2004 00:33:01 -0800

Igor wrote:
> imouttahere@mac.com wrote:
>
> > I can see why the fat cats and their paid-for politicians treat the
LVT
> > like the plague. Schwarzenegger's backers like Chevron aren't going
to
> > be pushing for it, that's for sure.
> >
>
> Quite the contrary. If the LVT was implemented right people like
Chevron
> would push for it. It would likely be less than current profit taxes
and
> state and local property taxes.

I'm no analyst and all the research I can do is the publically
available web, but just as McDonald's is a really a real estate
investment company in disguise, I suspect Chevron, being in the state
since time immemorial, is even more so, but extending the 'land' part
of its speculation into all of the state's remaining natural resources
that it claims.

Chevron gets hit with a high income tax rate and paid $5B in income tax
for FY03 but it has $44B of unamortized fixed assets on its books. Lord
knows what the actual market value of all its properties are.

> SLGs tax your capital improvements as
> well as the value of the unimproved land. Some companies like Exxon
> would probably end up paying less.

Not if the capital development has been tax-abated or has obtained
special offsets like public infrastructure investments.

> I think the real problem is the locked in system of labor taxes. I do

> not think Americans would see this as fair even if it was. Opponents
> would harp on how it would raise "rent", as in rent paid for housing,

> and taxes for the common people.

Yeah, opponents have been harping on the effects moving toward a
single-tax for more than a century now. Is there anywhere in the world
where it was implemented and made things worse?

> Secondly once a tax is there it is hard
> to repeal. Scare tactics would abound. People just do not like this
big
> of sweeping change such as eliminating all income taxes and going
with
> an LVT.

I totally agree. The unknown is always scarier than the known, and the
middle class as a whole has unfortunately leveraged themselves quite
highly into liquidating their land valuation into paying off consumer
debt.

> No politician is going to propose and LVT in addition to current
> taxes.

There's LVT single-tax and then there's the split property tax.
California is in deficit, and we're floating bonds to pay our expenses.
The unpopular car registration tax (1% of asset value/yr) was offset
this year but is still lurking out there. We're going to have to find
money somewhere, and clearly the rent income on commercial and
industrial property is the low hanging fruit. Driving the land
speculator's potential income streams out of the state would be
wonderful. They're welcome to stay to contribute their spending, of
course.

> There is no big conspiracy.

That's what all big conspiracies say :)

>We do not have the European landed aristrocacy here in the US.

We have wealth concentration that is breathtaking, and increasing.

http://www.schalkenbach.org/library/GaffneyWhoOwnsCalifornia.htm

> Things have changed quite a bit since George.

yeah, they've gotten a helluva lot worse for the average guy in the
state.

> A corporation seeing other taxes drop, such as the portion of
> social security, they pay as land taxes rose would see the benefits.

I don't understand that statement...

I was born in Ca in 1967. I've seen it boom bust and boom and bust.
You can bleat all you want here but I think the split-tax idea, which
is the ONLY policy decision that has a hope of remedy to the structural
flaws of the free enterprise system, will reappear in the public
debate. Every response from opponents allows we proponents to refine
and repeat our case.

I'm very very well read for the average joe and I had no idea of
existence of Georgism and its immense historical effect on the
progressive movement ~100 years ago. What an amazingly simple reform.
We had votes for water districts last month, but I had no idea that 100
years ago these were funded by the LVT.

But you're right that the LVT's time may not have come yet. The Free
Money of rising valuations over the past 30 years have made the bulk of
middle-class Californians fat, happy, and stupid. We'll see how long
the party lasts though. The median income can no longer afford the
median homevalue in most parts of the state. Something's gotta give.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Relative poverty, a problem?
    ... the idea of REMOVING ALL THE OTHER TAXES and replacing them with LVT alone. ... Social Security income that I have earned by virtue of PAYING out ... that FICA tax all of my life. ... In a system of land rent redistribution I will ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: Land, Labour and Capital Taxation....
    ... > Chevron gets hit with a high income tax rate and paid $5B in income tax ... load of land taxes that are not Georgian. ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: How Tax Supporters Killed Rome and why ROY L is wrong
    ... >> replace destructive taxes like income taxes and consumption taxes with ... >> neutral taxes like the land tax. ... >The tax code needs reformation no doubt - income tax has gotten far away ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: How Tax Supporters Killed Rome and why ROY L is wrong
    ... > replace destructive taxes like income taxes and consumption taxes with ... > neutral taxes like the land tax. ... The tax code needs reformation no doubt - income tax has gotten far away ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: Land, Labour and Capital Taxation....
    ... If the LVT was implemented right people like Chevron ... >well as the value of the unimproved land. ... >and taxes for the common people. ...
    (sci.econ)