No, you are wrong. The two cases are analogous. Under a LVT, if their tax goes up, it's because their land became more valuable. So when they sell they get more money. And under a LVT, if they spend money to build or improve a house, then they also get a benefit when they sell for a corresponding higher price. It's just that those improvements would not be reflected in a higher tax bill.
Sell what to who? Isn't everyone a lessor under Georgism?
I don't see how having regular auctions to determine what the land is actually worth is compatible with true land ownership. You auction the land to determine the tax, someone pays more than the current lessor, then that highest bidder gets to lease the land from the government and kick out the old lessor. Where does ownership of land and ability to sell it and profit from improvements come into play?
Unless you are in the Georgism-lite camp that says no auctions, just let government appraisers put value on the land as they do today and base the property tax on that exclusively instead of the current combined property tax. In this case you still have property ownership/buying/selling, which is far superior. I think the pros could outweigh the cons in limited situations, specifically downtown metro areas. But you have to accept a lot of bad pricing in this scenario, because these are the same assessors who allow all of those single story parking lots to profitably exist in downtown metros throughout the country.
These appraisers would all of a sudden wield huge influence, and one appraiser's opinion of the value of being near trendy shops or a park or a waterfront could vary significantly from another's. At least now they can use market data from similar properties to come to a tax assessment, since the tax is being assessed on the full value of the property.
> I don't see how having regular auctions to determine what the land is actually worth is compatible with true land ownership. You auction the land to determine the tax, someone pays more than the current lessor, then that highest bidder gets to lease the land from the government and kick out the old lessor. Where does ownership of land and ability to sell it and profit from improvements come into play?
Nobody's actually suggesting randomly auctioning off people's land at periodic time intervals.
> Nobody's actually suggesting randomly auctioning off people's land at periodic time intervals
You might be surprised if you visit r/georgism.
But the point is that if you don't do auctions, you don't know how to price the LVT, and you don't actually know if the resulting inefficiencies are more significant than the core problem with taxing productive land use that Georgism tries to address.
> You're arguing with ghosts.
You're selectively arguing with a fraction of a comment.
