A new report modeling a property tax building exemption in Spokane rebalances incentives toward community goals, encouraging homebuilding and discouraging in-city vacant land speculation.
I live in an older working-class part of Spokane. In general I think your proposal could work and would help. Specific example in my neighborhood: An old 8-unit apt bldg was vacant from 2008 to 2021. It gradually deteriorated and hosted squatters who caused trouble. The landowner was apparently happy to keep paying the property tax without doing anything about the problems. Eventually the squatters started a fire, and the city finally forced the owner to board and fence. But it still sat for two more years until the owner caught the peak of the 2021 inflation. Now it's finally renovated and nice under new ownership.
A large enough penalty on vacant property would have forced a quick sale and rebuild, avoiding years of problems and losses for nearby owners.
Thanks for this example -- I am the author of the mentioned report, and this example may be useful in building the case. I will investigate it!
A building exemption policy would make buildings like these cheaper to renovate, and more expensive to hold, which is a double-whammy of good incentives.
to be fair, i am talking about the whole of the policy, which is why I mention the building exemption here. When shifting taxes from building to land, that's a good policy, and it encourages development
what encourages development is REMOVING taxes on buildings, not ADDING taxes on land. and even if you say that making the land owner poorer increases their incentive for development vs leisure, that's not a productivity increase! as i explained in the piece.
this is a completely different issue. You're talking about taxing the negative externality of the vacant property. Land value tax is about taxing the receipt of a positive externality, the opposite. you don't tax it to change behavior indeed the whole point is that it doesn't change behavior so there's no dead weight loss. it's about equity effects. not efficiency.
I live in an older working-class part of Spokane. In general I think your proposal could work and would help. Specific example in my neighborhood: An old 8-unit apt bldg was vacant from 2008 to 2021. It gradually deteriorated and hosted squatters who caused trouble. The landowner was apparently happy to keep paying the property tax without doing anything about the problems. Eventually the squatters started a fire, and the city finally forced the owner to board and fence. But it still sat for two more years until the owner caught the peak of the 2021 inflation. Now it's finally renovated and nice under new ownership.
A large enough penalty on vacant property would have forced a quick sale and rebuild, avoiding years of problems and losses for nearby owners.
https://polistrasmill.com/2021/11/28/the-10-year-flip/
Thanks for this example -- I am the author of the mentioned report, and this example may be useful in building the case. I will investigate it!
A building exemption policy would make buildings like these cheaper to renovate, and more expensive to hold, which is a double-whammy of good incentives.
this example has nothing to do with land value taxes. it's about pigovian taxes.
https://clayshentrup.medium.com/does-a-land-value-tax-have-zero-or-negative-deadweight-loss-36f6d494a577
to be fair, i am talking about the whole of the policy, which is why I mention the building exemption here. When shifting taxes from building to land, that's a good policy, and it encourages development
what encourages development is REMOVING taxes on buildings, not ADDING taxes on land. and even if you say that making the land owner poorer increases their incentive for development vs leisure, that's not a productivity increase! as i explained in the piece.
this is a completely different issue. You're talking about taxing the negative externality of the vacant property. Land value tax is about taxing the receipt of a positive externality, the opposite. you don't tax it to change behavior indeed the whole point is that it doesn't change behavior so there's no dead weight loss. it's about equity effects. not efficiency.
https://clayshentrup.medium.com/does-a-land-value-tax-have-zero-or-negative-deadweight-loss-36f6d494a577
based!!
land value taxes have absolutely nothing to do with discouraging speculation. this is a myth refuted by econ 101.
https://clayshentrup.medium.com/does-a-land-value-tax-have-zero-or-negative-deadweight-loss-36f6d494a577
https://medium.com/@clayshentrup/taxing-rent-fixes-nothing-you-actually-care-about-a-reply-to-rent-a-new-framework-6a540f6d74d3