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Vaushist-Yangist t1_jdnebkr wrote

Reply to comment by KaliGracious in Can someone explain the justification for having "private" beaches? It seems like access to natural attractions should be free. by SnooBooks4898

Funny enough this idea is actually Georgist and is American af 🇺🇸🦅 Henry George was actually born in Philly and died in NYC so all the more reasons to respect him, especially here in NJ 😎

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KaliGracious t1_jdngghl wrote

I’ve heard some similar concepts in Left Libertarianism but always thought private ownership and profit of natural resources was fucking bullshit. thank you for introducing me to this.

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Vaushist-Yangist t1_jdnho2g wrote

No problem! Thanks for the interest! Georgism is actually pretty compatible with a lot of schools of thought

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YawnTractor_1756 t1_jdnwwno wrote

Just don't get too excited. Georgists collectively ignore its problems, namely defining land value, which is the main revenue source but is affected by so many factors, and since it would be the only revenue source, then calculating the land value would become as complex as the whole current tax code. E.g. nice little mom&pop shop you got there, would be a shame if oil would be found under it and hike land value tax through the roof, or if a new subway line would hike it, etc.

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Way2trivial t1_jdo03fa wrote

Heinlein had an idea.

Let everyone declare their own figure for value of their property, and pay taxes accordingly to their valuation.

Trick is, - if someone offers you that amount, you gotta sell it to them.

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YawnTractor_1756 t1_jdo1g4y wrote

>if someone offers you that amount, you gotta sell it to them.

So if your house costs 400k and tomorrow I tell you "here is 400k, I buy it, move out" you gotta do it? Such a nice idea...

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Way2trivial t1_jdo3bte wrote

so everyone lists an amount that would make it worth selling it for and the tax rate gets based on that amount..

So if everyone declares their house to be 'worth' 100% more than they paid for it, (and if I was offered double, I'd move) the tax basis is reduced to the same bill amount per property...You could also just make primary residences excluded....

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YawnTractor_1756 t1_jdo3rrz wrote

Your whole idea hinges on the obligation to sell, which is a stupid idea and will not work because of huge potetioal for abuse.

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TangoZuluMike t1_jds7oqf wrote

Yeah the valuation would have to be such that you could only sell at that price.

Obligated to would be dangerous.

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Way2trivial t1_jdo8vbv wrote

First, not my idea- I made that clear

second, can you be a little coherent about your perceived failure points rather than just rejecting?

You can set the price to whatever you wish....

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YawnTractor_1756 t1_jdogtcx wrote

Sure, not *your* idea but "your idea", no need to be that anal.

I gave you a very clear example how it won't work. Obligation to sell is incompatible with business plans, any competitor can upend you at any second, and it's very costly to move. It is ridiculous you demand me to explain that like it's not self evident.

So you either will have to set price very high, and pay ridiculous property taxes only to avoid being uprooted by a competitor, or risk being uprooted every day. With incentives like that "what can go wrong? /s".

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falcon0159 t1_jdoli45 wrote

It's certainly an interesting idea, but very flawed as you pointed out. I agree that primary residences would have to be exempt somehow (but then why won't people set the value very low?) and maybe instead of being forced to sell if someone offers you the amount you set, they would need to offer more, and they only get one chance to offer more, and you could also choose to raise the valuation to that amount that they offer.

They would of course need to provide valid proof of funds for an offer and be willing to go through with the purchase or else be fined/lose an earnest money deposit of x% of their offer (maybe 10-20%?) which could go 75% to the homeowner and 25% to the state or something.

This would help prevent abuse and allow you to keep your property. We could also limit the frequency of those "takeover" offers to once a year or something like that as well.

We also have the highest property taxes in the country at the moment (and one of the highest income taxes), so we would need to find ways to both raise more money while making it more affordable IMO.

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YawnTractor_1756 t1_jdoon5p wrote

You can see how "defining property value" tax code is exploding right at your laps? And mind that none of us is tax specialist, and still you were able to type out 4 "rules", and I can type 3 comments to each of the rules you made, and tax specialist will probably be able to type 20 comments to every rules you made, and make 250 more rules easily because they know the problematics.

The point is: what's the point of this whole overhaul? Does it really help with anything? Is it really provided that it will lead to more fair taxation?

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falcon0159 t1_jdp7jyj wrote

Oh, I'm not the OP that you were initially responding to, I just read the thread and thought it was an interesting, but also a complicated and inherently flawed idea in many aspects and decided to comment on some ideas

I can come up with a ton of additional rules of the top of my head, but you're right in that I'm not a tax "expert" in that I'm not a CPA, but I am personally very knowledgeable about tax and work in a related field. (Obviously I have no idea about OP and what their knowledge on the subject is. Your assumption is generally a very safe one as most redditors don't know much about tax, or even personal finance let alone corporate or institutional finance.

I am not sure what OP's intentions were with this tax idea, but I believe the purpose is to fairly tax each individual property based on it's value on a state wide level, rather than doing it by municipality. This would lead to a much more accurate valuation and tax base, as we wouldn't be relying on town's to do reassessments. We could then set a state wide property tax rate based on revenue needed and adjust it annually based on the total property valuations rather than having each town have it's own semi-arbitrary tax rate. This would lead to people in town's like Alpine and Paramus have a increase in tax as they have very low taxes ($ wise) in relation to property values and other towns like West Orange seeing lower taxes as they have the opposite problem.

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Way2trivial t1_jdokfs8 wrote

Do you know how property taxes are set? dividing the ratables over the budget.

so (keeping it simple) if the total value the tax assessor finds for a community real estate is 100 million, and the community needs 1 million to operate, everyone chips 1% of the value of their property in.

if the value of all the real estate is 1,000 million (billion) the tax rate is .1% and every chips .1% of the value of the property in.

If implemented, and EVERYONE with property started off with an automatic 4X amount as assessed by the tax assessor- then everyone would have the same tax bill as before.

It's when you go to declare a different valuation that your tax bill changes and risk increases or decreases to match.

So if my fair market price $500,000 house WAS assessed at $420,000 now my fair market house still priced at $500,000 is now assessed at $1,680,000 but my tax bill stays the same. If someone wants to pay me 1.6 mill for it- I'm good.

It's when I want to declare a different value that my bill levels out...

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YawnTractor_1756 t1_jdom12u wrote

Ah, so your idea is "let's artificially inflate all property prices 4x at once". If I wasn't lazy and drunk on saturday I might have typed out how dumb this idea is in a different way and how it's going to shoot you in the foot, but I'm too lazy and drunk on saturday night..

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Way2trivial t1_jdonn5p wrote

No- let's inflate the 'prices I'd sell at in a heartbeat' at once.

again, if someone wants to pay me 1.6 million dollars for my 500k house?
No problem on my end...

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YawnTractor_1756 t1_jdop98d wrote

So, is there a price of "I would sell in 2/3/4/6/10 heartbeats"? Because if not then there is only one price, and you just inflated it 400%.

You can ask Chat GPT "what would be economic consequences if commercial property prices were inflated 400% overnight"

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Way2trivial t1_jdorzpu wrote

yeah. the regular "i need to move due to life changes" price.
negotiated and voluntary.

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lCt t1_jdpelko wrote

Based Georgism! Land value tax is such a fucking cool idea.

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