zlacker

We need taxes on vacancies. Encourage people to let property go to people who can put it to some use. Prevent blight and crime, etc, too.

>>majorm+(OP)
Ah yes, the California solution to everything - tax it.

>>umeshu+v2
Honest question - should taxes be abolished?

>>umeshu+v2
Even the most die-hard libertarian economist believes in Pigouvian taxes to address externalities. If vacant buildings are an externality cost, they should be taxed.

>>umeshu+v2
smh California has had a rigid cap on property taxes since like the late 70s. That decision is largely why the rest of California's taxes are so high.

>>umeshu+v2
Quite literally the opposite of the situation in California, but go off.

>>majorm+(OP)
Put a land value tax in place, and then the incentive to hold property for speculation goes away, in favour of selling it to people who can use it productively.

>>maest+X3
Honest answer: No, because that would mean to return to Hobbesian world.

Taxes are a way to pay for communal goods. We don't pay enough of them - our obsession with cutting them is part and parcel of the disastrous response to SARS2-CoV.

I very much like having a government that can step in during emergencies and distribute the load. I like living in a society where we care about other people to.

Abolishing taxes is strictly "me first, fuck the rest". I suggest people who like this approach try living in Somalia for a while, that's their desired end state.

>>lmm+7C
> Put a land value tax in place

We already have that. I pay huge property taxes every year and so does everyone else who owns land.

>>Walter+4m2
Not the same thing. Property taxes based on the improved value of the land create a perverse incentive to avoid making improvements, and California prop 8 and similar laws encourage people to hold property as long as possible rather than sell to people who could make better use of it.