Re: better tax code: no income tax, head tax (&| ppty t)

On Feb 28, 7:04 pm, "Andy F." <never.m...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"RogerDodger" <n...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

That's clearly wrong..A high tax on labor would cause some people to stop
working, thus reducing the number of workers.

This is the same mistake Roy makes. It does not reduce population nor
the numbers of workers. It reduces the amount of workers who wish to
sell their labor at the going wage. This is Roy's main
misunderstanding of supply. You may understand that but I will point
it out anyway.


When the tax is on the value of the property, there's nothing to gain by
hiding the rental arrangements. The only reason for 'backroom deals' is when
the landlord is trying to avoid income tax.


No the problem is the enforcement mechanism would have to be the state
takes the land if you do not pay the taxes. So people who can not find
buyers and want to sell would let taxes pile up and the STATE would
own the land. I am much too much of a capitalist and much too cynical
about government to be believe that the government would not wield
unduly influence over the market. If the tax is set wrong and
regulations are not in check governments could easily end up owning
most of the land. We saw how well governments allocated in the Soviet
Union. This is why I am not a Georgist. You are the last bastion of
socialism, government ownership of assets. Socialism has proved over
and over again to be inefficient.

I think the LVT is a fine tax, if set right and regulations on buying,
selling, using land are in check. This is not the 1800's, governments
place deed restrictions and interfere way too much in land use.
Without fewer restrictions we would find state ownership of the land.
Furthermore, I do not believe it is appropriate for a single tax. I
think there is a reason why governments have not used land taxes
beyond the state level and it is not conspiracy of evil land owners.
The tax takes an enormous amount of information to be gathered. You
can not just say X% of the selling price and say this is low cost. The
truth is market prices rarely matter to country tax assessors when
they asses taxes. One year ago I bought a house and land. The county
rejected the price I paid for the bundle as the tax value they used
their inaccurate measurement to get a higher value. To accurate
measure market prices tons of resources have to be poured into
estimating market value EVERY YEAR. My belief is a federal land tax
would a be bigger administrative burden than the IRS. Little raw land
is bought or sold and it would take much more sophisticated analysis
than most states use to determine what the selling of the raw land
would be without improvements, especially in areas with little raw
land. In two different counties I have owned property, the evaluation
of raw land was simply X% of the selling price which is highly
inaccurate.

I firmly believe that the cost of getting a land tax right would far
exceed the revenues and the benefits of the LVT. This tax would hardly
pay for its own administration.

.

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