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Comment by andrewla

I agree with many of the arguments here about the theoretical impacts of a land value tax, especially the section "an LVT implicitly taxes improvements to nearby land" which is often overlooked or glossed over in these discussions.

But my main argument is practical. I content that it is simply not possible to evaluate the "unimproved value" of a given parcel. Any discussion of a practical LVT has to start with the fact that it is an approximation to a theoretical ideal, and define exactly what the basis for "land value" estimation is, because it's really a tax on that process. While some of these may have overlap with the benefits and detriments of a theoretical LVT, they have to be looked at from first principles rather than by comparison with the LVT because the fundamental assumptions are often broken.

parent andrewla 1 year ago

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