Taxation: The good, the bad and the ugly.

You mean eminent domain?

Government can't just steal lawfully held land without compensation.

Wait...Hussein Obama might try.

 

Buzz buzz is nothing but to let you know you are being rude, like a bug buzzing in my ear. No, it is not rude to you, it is a nice way to say, stop, post at least a little evidence to support your point about Geoism (something of which you have yet to do) and stop insulting everyone who doesn't agree with you. Would you prefer I simply report your rude posts? Keep up your rudeness and blathering about a subject of which you obviously know nothing and that is what I will do.

Basically I am fed up with people who live to flame others. I have discussed controversial subjects for days with civil people and none of is were as rude as you and your compadre who appear to want to do nothing but put down people who disagree with you. Well I am done with you and since you have nothing of value to contribute to an economics discussion, good riddance.

 

No, it doesn't. Purchasing land doesn't make land a result of labor. And taking that logic to its extreme, you could say that the sun title you bought from the government is just, rightful, and a result of purchasing something with the fruits of your labor and you therefore deserve to charge others for sunlight licenses you issue or force them to live in the dark if they refuse to do so. You just bought something which violates other people's liberty.

I'm pretty certain that you were the first one that just snobbishly dismissed me as "obviously knowing little economics", in what I think was your second or so response to me, instead of offering an actual refutation to the point that was made.

You know what they say about glass houses.

 

No. The point is, if you want to live or have a business near infrastructure, you have to pay a landowner for that opportunity. So, obviously, landowners benefit the most from infrastructure.

 

I think he means that without the protection of the state they would simply be robbed: probably by the state, since the rich are perfectly capable of defending themselves through private means. Thus, they have to pay larger taxes than the poor since there is more to protect.

[hr][/hr]

Let's entertain an analogy.

• A Mafia family has a distribution of protection rackets around a city block.
• The victims aren't allowed to opt out or they'll have all their stock destroyed and probably be whacked (the state imprisons you, but this is only marginally better).
• The Mafia bosses select two candidates from which they allow the victims to choose the next head of the protection racket.

This is the reality we live in. I don't want to have an insignificant choice between vetted candidates that I hate to an equal degree, I want to opt out!

 

"...if you want to live or have a business near infrastructure, you have to pay a landowner for that opportunity."

Taxcutter says:
You gotta put infrastructure somewhere. Are you suggesting that adjacent landowners be robbed of the utility of their property just because the government put a road next to (or across) it?

 

You have a very bad memory. In fact, you and roy showed nothing but disdain and lack of civility in addressing everyone on the board before anyone did some get back. As far as I am concerned you display ignorance and expect everyone to accept your ignorance on face value. You have named a few people who like LVT but you have not shown any really supportive study or proof of your opinion, most of which are counter main stream economic theory.

Having said that, I agree with dnsmith, either address me with civility or don't address me at all. I don't accept disrespect from the likes of you or roy. So shape up or move out.

 

Actually the one who benefits from the infrastructure is the one who is occupying the land and using the infrastructure. The Owner may not be anywhere near the land so he gets no benefit from the infrastructure other than he can collect a higher rent from the tenant but he also has to pay a higher property tax because the land has more value. That is not LVT Armor, that is simple property tax like most everyone in the US pays on property he owns. Or in the case of a net lease, the tenant pays the tax directly to the collecting agency.

BTW, there was never an ill word pass to you until your belligerence and lack of civility prompted an answer in kind from me, so if you want to continue in the mold of the other forum you put yourself into the same category as your crony geoist as an unwelcome guest.

- - - Updated - - -

Good to see you cracker, wasn't sure you would find this new thread.

 

No. But thanks for proving you haven't the slightest interest in reducing the cost of government, "Taxcutter."

Land cannot be owned without first being stolen from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use it, and is only "lawfully held" by government-granted privilege in the first place.

<yawn>

 

That is of course false. I have posted plenty of facts in support of my position.

I only insult people for being dishonest.

Censorship: the last resort of the proved-wrong.

I am fed up with people who profit by abrogating others' rights and claim this is somehow a productive contribution.

Disagree all you like, but at least be honest about it.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: there is no honest way to rationalize privilege, justify injustice, and excuse evil.

 

That is a fabrication.

We have identified the facts that prove us right.

False. We have repeatedly identified the relevant facts, and you have merely pretended we haven't.

<yawn>

 

No, because he has to pay the landowner full market value for access to it. So he doesn't benefit, any more than someone who buys a rare coin from a guy who found it in his change. It's the guy who got the coin in change who benefits, because he is the one who gets way more than he gives.

I.e., he gets all the benefit, of which that higher rent is the measure.

He repays maybe 1/10 of the value he is being given.

I've explained why property tax is self-contradictory.

And pays exactly the same amount less rent in consequence.

 

And pay for it somehow.

The utility of their "property" is a gift from government and the community in the first place, not something they rightly own. So they cannot be robbed of it through the community merely declining to give it to them in return for nothing. That is very much the point.

And thanks for proving again that you have not the slightest interest in either reducing the cost or increasing the efficiency of government.

 

Landowners being compensated for use of their land is an infinitesimal fraction of the cost of government - especially compared to free stuff.

 

First, it is just as easy to make the case that the infrastructure is there because of the business. Second, the primary function of infrastructure is protection of liberty via use by the military, which is why the road system was developed.

This pseudo-Marxist bushwa that Georgists espouse is the worse type of progressive taxation, and places complete and utter control and ownership in the hands of an authoritarian body.

 

While I don't object to progressive personal income taxes, I agree that Geoists tout a system which can be best only for small units of government and will never generate enough to support even constitutionally authorized functions of the government.

 

I'm not sure how a system would work with out property tax. Not all comunities are equall and require different amounts of money to maintain the services which is well suited to locally set mil rates

 

Nobody would locate a business anywhere without convenient access to infrastructure, population, or at least natural benefits required by certain types of businesses. And even if, that still doesn't mean the owner of that land deserves to pocket the value of such public spending. First come first serve mentality is entirely irrelevant when liberty is at stake. And it would still be the government issuing the land title anyways.

???????????

"A right of property in movable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands not till after that establishment.... He who plants a field keeps possession of it till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated and their owner protected in his possession. Till then the property is in the body of the nation." - Thomas Jefferson

"Men did not make the earth.... It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds." - Thomas Paine, "Agrarian Justice," paragraphs 11 to 15

"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the licence to gather them; and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of commodities makes a third component part. " - Adam Smith

"Landlords grow richer in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title." - John Stuart Mill

"Unearned increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit, but they are the principal form of unearned increment, and they are derived from processes which are not merely not beneficial, but positively detrimental to the general public." - Winston Churchill

"VIII.

All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion to the value of all land within each State, granted or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the United States in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint.

The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several States within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled." - Articles of Confederation

The best kind because it doesn't tax contributions to the economy.

Who do you think issues land titles? Landowners benefit from big government because it's much more profitable when people's incomes and trades are taxed so that they can pocket the resulting land values from the public spending financed thereby. It's a massive scam. Government would become much less intrusive if land was was taxed at a higher rate instead.

 

Wrong again. As the Henry George Theorem shows, ALL government spending on desired services and infrastructure that is not wasted through incompetence or stolen through corruption goes to landowners -- and this is reflected in the fact that total land rent is quite comparable to total government spending, at about 20% of GDP (total government spending in the USA is about 30% of GDP, reflecting the fraction of government spending that is wasted, stolen, or spent on things like bombing foreign countries rather than on desired services and infrastructure).

 

No, it is not. Such claims are just false, absurd, and dishonest. Business ALWAYS looks for locations that are well served by infrastructure. They NEVER pick a location unserved by infrastructure, build their premises there, and then wait for the infrastructure to be built so they can begin operations. Such claims are just self-evidently and indisputably stupid.

Wrong. The primary function of infrastructure is to support economic development, which is why there is plenty of infrastructure even in countries where the military is all but non-existent. Those who require access to the infrastructure in order to engage in productive economic activities must pay landowners full market value for that access.
mod edit>>>please no insults

No, it is the best type: the type that corrects injustice.

No, that's a fabrication already demolished by Armor for Sleep. Government administers possession and use of land in any case, because that's what government IS: the sovereign authority over a specific area of land. In fact, of course, control of land in a geoist society is exercised overwhelmingly by the productive private land users who pay the community for the advantages the community provides, because that is what a geoist government's financial incentives require.

The co-founder of the American Libertarian Party is a geoist and LVT advocate. Google "geolibertarian" and start reading.

 

The biggest welfare check government issues is called a land title. What you call free stuff is peanuts in comparison.

 

That's still wrong, because people are robbed of ASSETS, not INCOME.

ROTFL!!

No, they are not, which is why we have government. The rich defending themselves through private means is called, "feudalism." It doesn't work, and under feudalism, even the rich are poor, because they have to spend all their money defending their possession of what they hold. That is The Lesson Of Feudalism.

Again, that's assets, not income.

 

Wrong again. In Meiji Japan, a land value tax that did not even recover half the land rent financed 60%-80% of all government spending for a generation -- during which the country was transformed from a stagnant feudal backwater into a global industrial, economic and military power, including massive public investments in infrastructure, education and the military.

 

Trading posts and later around those basic primitive business appeared before infrastructure appeared in the United States so your statement is demonstrably false.national oads were built for thier military benefit and were promoted since Washington.

Whether they understand it or not Georgists preach 100% control of land and resources by government. Those that control the land (in your case, you are preaching government control all land) control the resources of land. No government should have the ability to tax an land, because the tax is arbitrary and can be limitlessly manipulated to oppress its citizens. Georgism is socialism unleashed.

No tax is moral, whether it is a tea tax, a tax on production or a tax on land. There is no practical difference.

 

There is no difference. The bottom line is either kind of tax can be leverage to be overbearing, and punishes its citizens. Government does not have a moral authority to tax, for any reason whatsoever.