out of the box thought on taxes

Right: he isn't, other than legally, the same way slave owners were entitled to "earn" money on the money they "invested" in slaves.

Simple question:

Suppose instead of land titles, government was issuing licenses to steal -- which is what a land title effectively is. The stealing licenses would trade in an active market, as land titles now do. People would buy them for high prices, as they now buy land titles, in the expectation of being able to profit by them. Jim buys one of the licenses. He wants and expects to make money from his investment in the license by stealing from you. Is he entitled to do so?

 

Hogwash. Zero tariffs mean that it is cheaper for the retailers to buy everything off shore and tell domestic manufacturers to cut prices, go to China or go to hell. That does not help anybody but the investor class, and they, lately, have been of no use to society.

 

Yes, he is. You aren't.

It would not, because it does not change the amount the market is willing to pay for the land. It only changes who gets the money.

If you can get $17.12 for your widgets, why don't you charge that much now?

See? You won't be able to sell them for $17.12. The market won't pay that much for the same number of widgets. What will happen is that the price you get will be lower than $10.70, the quantity demanded will be lower, and some of the burden of the tax will be borne by you, and some by widget consumers. This is first-year economics.

<sigh> If you could raise the rent to $4800, why don't you do so without the tax?

No. We are simply more logically consistent than you can possibly imagine.

A lot of people take me seriously. And I think you are one of them, even though you pretend you are not.

<yawn> Then what explains HK's GDP/capita, which is about the same as the USA's, hmmmmmmmmm?

 

No tax at all

I guess a consumption tax would minimize the impact, but it has the drawback of being rather regressive. You'd improve your forecast overnight if you eliminated the corporate tax, which is really a double tax anyway.

• Eliminate the corporate tax
• Gradually replace income taxes with consumption taxes
• Significantly reduce trade barriers - tariffs, etc
• Make working visas almost too easy to get, and give workers a pathway to citizenship, but be severe should they do the wrong thing
• Give foreign university graduates easier pathways to citizenship
• Get rid of minimum wage laws

There's always a trade-off between equity and efficiency. If you want to have a competitive market then you've got to stop initiating force against businesses and individuals.

 

Strawman.

Nope. Jim won't pay $4800. If he would, the landlord would be charging him that much already. Why not? The landlord simply has to accept not being able to keep the money. He has no choice, because any alternative will only cost him more.

Economists do not agree on much, but they do agree that a land value tax CANNOT be passed on to anyone else.

 

That is correct. You will find him by removing your head from said @$$ and looking in a mirror.

No, you don't.

Paying land rent doesn't add to the cost of producing an item. That is why people are willing to pay it.

GET IT???

<<< Mod Edit: Insult >>>

Why do you refuse to know the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove we are right?

False. It would be assessed only to landowners, and not on products at all, and would be just as high on offshore, non-American landowners as property taxes are now.

Right. It is actually very easy. You just refuse to know the relevant facts, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

Assuming there is that much land rent. Some people say there would not be. A land value tax CANNOT collect more than the land rent on a long-term basis.

False. A land value tax forces foreigners who own land in the USA to pay the full tax on it.

Actually, by solving most social and economic problems, LVT would enable a dramatic reduction in government spending on things like poverty relief, economic support for distressed areas, etc.

It's true that a sales tax is better than a value-added tax for that reason.

It definitely would be, and we have proved it.

It is not the best for giving rich, greedy parasites unearned wealth.

 

Jim's landlord is entitled to the money he earns by providing his tenants with a building. He's not entitled to one single measly cent that he charges his tenants for access to the roads, sewer system, power lines, schools, hospitals and so on, which he does not provide, but which ownership of the land, which he doesn't provide either, enables him to do. All these nice benefits increase land value which he charges his tenants for. If government doesn't recover that value to fund all these nice benefits then Jim will have to pay for them again with income taxes, sales taxes, etc. doubling his cost of doing business as opposed to under the land value tax. Well, tough luck for the landlord. If he's not satisfied with the reduced rental income under the land value tax he'll just have to become a more productive member of society like Jim instead of being a net drain on it.

 

A land value tax is levied on landowners, not farmers. A farmer pays land rent to a landowner. Why would he care if he paid the exact same amount to the community for the services and infrastructure it provides that make the land valuable, rather than to a landowner for nothing? Wouldn't he rather pay for government only once, instead of twice? Don't you think that would REDUCE his cost of production?

Land rent is paid for an advantage in production.

What if everyone had to wear shoes 50 feet long?

$50K/acre of farmland adds up to a significant multiple of GDP. Try again.

That is not the argument. LAND RENT is not a COST OF PRODUCTION.

I have, for many years.

Wrong. Not all taxes hurt the economy, and sales taxes are partially shifted onto producers, harming their competitiveness in the global marketplace.

Yes, it does. It is just not a way you are intellectually equipped to understand.

 

Yeah, and it will come mostly out of the pockets of the working class, and consume a larger percentage of their disposable income than it will of the income of the investor class, who will use their surplus to get fatter, maybe by importing stuff so that they do not have to pay sales tax on the stuff they would need to make products or build physical plant here.

The graduated income tax with reasonably high tariffs on stuff that we could make here is the only way to go. Just give a nice tax credit for R&D and the construction or up-grading of physical plant. Worked just fine back in the early 1960s.

 

No, it isn't. Land value taxation is incomparably superior.

 

Land VALUE Tax not Land Flat Rate Per Acre Tax. Come on.

 

Fixed.

 

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The logical conclusion to this would be that the tax is inversely proportional to the land use: Unimproved (not productive): High Tax; Improved (productive): No tax.

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This would encourage the development of land to productivity rather than holding the land in an unproductive manner, and thus, encourage economic activity.

 

It's a tax on the unimproved value of land not just a tax on unimproved land. Two identical parcels next to each other will have the same tax even if one is empty and the other has a building on it.

Just one of the many good things the land value tax would accomplish.

 

You mean, a land value tax just like the one we have now, or will it be higher? If higher, who pays the extra expense?

 

So basically a tax cut for people using their land and a tax hike for people who keep it intact? Is America's problem that we do not have enough land in use? What would this solve? Does it replace other taxes?

 

You are falling for the false idea that we lose productivity when we buy goods from overseas. That money gets spent here eventually you know. What about all the manufacturers who use foreign made resources and equipment? Removing tarried would help all consumers while making sure our economy is being out robots most efficient use and we are not propping up what would otherwise be failing businesses without protections. Tattoos are no different then taxing people and sending a portion of that to the company as a bailout every year.

 

Some of that was fairly decent. But you should t have used HK housing situation as an example of a policy gone right. That is probably their worst sector, sun par housing for what they make.

 

Unimproved Value

 

How is the value of the land determined in either case?

 

I think the corporate tax is a double tax, but only justified because of the level of protection given. Essentially, a corporation held by 10,000 shareholders is the same as corporation held by just you and me. If you and I own a company, and something disastrous happens, we're not liable for anything more than our shares. If just you owned the company, under a single proprietorship, you're liable for all damages, even beyond everything you own.

I was referring specifically to a national tax (though I think you're mostly right on other parts), and I agree that a sales tax would minimize the impact.

 

I feel that limited liability is just another government entitlement, they need to adjust for liability themselves in the free market.

 

and tra-la-la-la-la. I know why so many people are unable to answer a simple question - because it doesn't lead to the result they want to see.

See, that's all fine and well, but if you were to ask, 'which kind of tax system taxes the poor the least,' would any points about how a progressive tax system makes us less competitive be relevant?

Well in the 1960s federal spending as a % of gdp was around 17% and we were paying down the debt, quite different from Obama's spending 25% of gdp and increasing the debt, a 50% increase. Get us back to that, 17% of gdp and paying down the debt, and I'll be fine with 1960s imports and graduated taxes.

 

Actually, the Mayor isn't objectively wrong, the quote posting got screwed up.

The real fact of the matter is that high corporate taxes (*)(*)(*)(*)s the country imposing the taxes.

How's that for objectivity for you?