Re: Land tax -- the Hudson/Gaffney challenge (Re: better tax code: no income tax, head tax (&| ppty t)

On Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:08:25 -0400, RogerDodger wrote:

I am pretty sure that "RogerDodger" is actually a name for the same old
tired and defeated protector of the rich that has inhabited this news
group for many years. If not then it is just a new recruit to the cause
of serving the privileged individuals in the society.


On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 01:41:25 +0100, ask@xxxxxx (PeterBP) wrote:

RogerDodger <none@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rent for
improvements to real estate goes under the table, or is sharply
reduced in back-room deals (I slash your rent, you hire my wife for a
no-show job, etc.)

Roger,

your post has some good points, but here you confuse the common-parlance
rent (such as that for monthly tenure in a flat) with economic rent, and
specifically the land rent.

Land rent is not easy to hide. That is one of the strengths of the land
taxation idea.

An assertion not only without evidence but directly contradicted by
logic, expert testimony and all human experience.

(1) Logic...

Why is it any harder to hide rent to land than to buildings or
anything else, when it is profitable to do so? It's even easier,
because land value can be and *is* shifted to buildings.

Why is it impossible to hide only rent to land? Please explain.

Georgists seem to think that by purportedly taxing "land" they
actually are taxing land itself -- but they are taxing only
contractual arrangements.

Why are contractual arrangements regarding land supposed to be more
difficult to obscure than any others?

Georgists actually know that they are taxing land ownership as opposed to
taxing land itself. The "super-Georgist" understands that _privilege_ is
being taxed. Land ownership was merely the primary vehicle of privilege
in the past. At present, the privilege of money creation has actually
supplanted land ownership as the _best_ vehicle of privilege. Land
ownership is still however a major vehicle. Consider what would have
happened had land taxation been used as a monetary tool over the last 7
years: There would have been no "housing bubble".

(2) Expert testimony...

Hudson says 50% of land value is shifted away from land to other
things right now. Mason Gaffney, geeze, do I have to quote him on
this?

George Donatello, who managed the last Pittsburgh assessement that
collapsed the system with 170,000 appeals, said a big part of the
problem was that assessed land values going into it "were so low they
weren't anywhere near reality. People in the past kept land values
low, artificially low, because of the way the tax rate was
structured."

Hudson, Gaffney and Donatello of course are all big *pro* land tax.

You are saying they are all wrong?

If so, what mistake are they making?

They are all essentially correct. But they are very concentrated on the
land privilege and seem to miss the money creation privilege.

(3) All human experience....

Whenever a power such as the state tries to confiscate the price to
sellers that sellers otherwise would command in a free market, a black
market, backroom deals, key money, under-the-table payments, favor
trades, etc. *always* result. You can't find any case *ever* where
they haven't.

If the ONLY means by which government can finance itself is with a land
tax then there can be no escape form the taxation other than to do away
with government. And when government is gone then there is no enforcement
of contracts. The enforcement of contracts is the primary reason for the
existence of government.

The "wedge" between what is allowed to the seller under the rules and
what buyers are willing to actually pay creates both opportunity and
incentive to go outside the rules so both can benefit by splitting the
difference, sharing the wedge.

Why would this not happen with land in the future? And only in the
future, when it certainly has happened in the past!

I asked a question before -- let's now call it the Hudson/Gaffney/
Donatello challenge..

Let us leave them out and just go head to head. It makes things much more
interesting and removes all the false claims.

In light of the current tax disadvantage of value being attributed to
land, Hudson says land owners have succeeded in understating its value
by 50% and shifting this value to other things. As we know, Gaffney
and the Pittsburgh land assessor certainly agree in substance.

Question #1: Are they wrong? If no, then...

Probably not.

Question #2: How is the Georgist tax system going to remedy this???
What remedy do the Georgists have that they could offer the tax
asssessors who are missing 50% or so of land value today???

It is not an offer to the assessors at all. As a matter of fact, if the
only place these assessors can get their income is from a tax on land
ownership then they have every incentive to overstate the value of such
ownership.

(And, of course, the tax cost of valuing land and incentive to move
its valye to other tax-free items will be hugely greater in Single Tax
Land than now.)

But then the assessors will die of starvation. In a truly "republican
form of government", the assessors are trapped between their lust for
income and the public good.

The answers I got when I asked before were...

* Today's tax collectors are DISHONEST, but Georgist tax collectors
will be honest. (Why? Because they will be genetically re-engineered?)

There is an assumption of a truly REPRESENTATIVE form of government in all
of the Georgist arguments. At present we know that we have "The Best
Congress That Money Can Buy". And until that is repaired then there can
be no "honest" tax system. It is speculated that a simpler tax system will
create a more transparent government. That may well be true but the
creation of such a system (and more importantly, the preservation of such
a system) is dependent upon a truly representative government that
represents a well informed citizenry. The "return" to a non land value
tax system is always achieved by false economics and dishonesty and greed.
And to a limited extent it is based on classic conservatism; the "rights"
of inheritance and political position.

* The IRS and NYC tax assessors don't care if they don't collect tax
today. But Georgist tax collectors will care! (How come? They'll
attend motivational seminars??)

* <Snip> All reference to the issue deleted.

Government (and tax assessors) are compelled to honesty ONLY by virtue of
a true representation of the people in THEIR government. If government is
not representative of the people then there is no HONEST government.
Georgist tend to concentrate on land value taxation because it is less
confusing than such vehicles as the misuse of money creation power.
Monetary economics is not simple and the current government
representatives are focused on their own privilege as opposed to actually
representing the people and the society. Until such time as the common
people are informed and actually represented by their government then the
government will continue to be a problem.

* Georgist tax assessors will use comparable sales! Unlike today's
tax collectors who use comparable sales. ;-)

C'mon -- you all know all these answers are entirely, um,
unimpressive.

Anyone want to take another shot at answering the challenge?

You seem to like the straw stuff very much. The "challenge" is straw in
its entirety.

--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org/extend

.

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