LOL! Now you are just lying. Inevitably. You asked me four (4) questions, and made many objectively false claims. I answered all four of your questions, and demolished your false claims. By contrast, I asked you nine questions, and you did not answer a single one of them. Nor have you managed to refute even one sentence I have written. You're done because I have provided far more facts than you, and you have no answers. No, you merely claimed logical fallacies that I did not in fact commit, and provided no arguments to support your claims. You cannot tolerate being proved wrong and have consequently decided not to know the facts that prove you wrong. Simple.
Ahh... so you cover your lies by lying. OK. Exactly why I'll wait for someone who knows what the issue is and not you. I was interested in finding out the positives and the drawbacks. You're not bright enough to do so. i pointed them out, too. You have brought forth theory. I wanted hard numbers in support of the theory. You obviously don't have the ability to do so. I see a number of problems with the idea and instead of trying to explain it, you attacked me for pointing out some problems with your idealogy.
No, you claimed I had not answered your questions when you knew very well that I had. That was a lie. You claimed I was not sure if the property tax is regressive when I had just finished stating explicitly that it provably ISN'T. And you have not demonstrated that any statement of mine was even false, let alone a lie. No, you made unsubstantiated claims, and have still not substantiated them, nor will you ever be substantiating them. You may be accustomed to getting away with such nonsense with other posters, but it won't wash with me. Both geofree and I have provided hard numbers, and I even explained the present value equation to you, which shows why they are what they are. You, by contrast, have provided no numbers whatever that support your claims. No, you haven't identified any problems, nor will you ever be doing so. You have asked questions and I have answered them, and then you have lied that I did not answer them. You have made unsubstantiated and objectively false claims -- e.g., your claim that NJ had the highest property tax rates of any state; that property tax rates are high in various parts of NY; that many people are being taxed out of their homes, etc. -- and I have refuted them. That's how this works: you make objectively false claims, I refute them with actual facts, and then you lie about what I have plainly written. It's always the same.
You can deny it, but others can read through and see it for themselves. Oooohhhh... I'm not really frightened of people like you who are so factually challenged that you can't back yourself up. hence my questioning further of your claims. I was interested in seeing some real world numjbers, but I'll have to go to someone who knows instead of you. Put up. Or shut up. Let's see numbers. I won't be holding my breath waiting. Oh, just because I like to punk the punks... http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/nj_property_taxes_climb_70_per.html http://www.thestreet.com/story/11145864/1/new-york-new-jersey-top-list-of-high-tax-states.html (The second link is merely there because the right will point to the high property taxes, but get it completely wrong on the whys and hows )..
Scrolling through at a rate that doesn't even qualify as a "skim," so I'm likely missing a lot of context, but this caught my eye. Since I qualify as one of these young people, I'd say that my generation's getting the shaft in a lot more than just the housing market (I'm thinking Social Security and Medicare getting gutted, policymakers sitting on their hands while we graduate into a god-awful job market, etc), but hasn't the last few years showed that maybe not everyone should be buying a house in the first place? George Carlin's quip about the American Dream seems to be ringing true for a lot of us young people: "It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."
<yawn> You are the one who claimed NJ had the highest property tax rates in the country and then could not -- and still can't -- back it up. <yawn> http://www.nahb.org/fileUpload_details.aspx?contentTypeID=3&contentID=76984&subContentID=105281 Proving that NJ's property tax rate is lower than those of NH, VT, WI, TX and NB. NY's rate is even lower. NJ and NY have the highest property tax AMOUNTS on owner-occupied housing both because land is so expensive there and because a lot of people are tenants, and the rates are often lower on multi-family properties. From the same source: "A simple correlation analysis confirms a negative relationship between house values and property tax rates (the correlation is -.014)." There is also an issue with the relationship between assessed value and market value, with many assessed values being wildly wrong, almost always on the low side. The most informative numbers would be for market value, but they are hard to come by. Most state assessments are very out of date. A better idea of the actual property tax burden is the fraction of state and local revenue obtained from property taxes. In NJ is it 35%, but in NH it is 43%, by far the highest in the country (see the table at the above site). You just choked. <sigh> Still can't tell the difference between rate and amount, huh?
Of course not everyone should be buying a home. The problem is that the exorbitant welfare subsidy giveaways to landowners mean that buying land is a matter of sheer financial self-defense: not owning land is tantamount to a vow of perpetual poverty. Reducing or eliminating the subsidy would make ownership far more affordable, and ensure that those whose lifestyles do not suit home ownership would no longer effectively be enslaved by the landed aristocracy and mortgage lenders.
Thought this was an interesting suggestion: "Its true that our corporate rates are the second-highest in the world. But its also true that what our corporations actually pay is nowhere near the second-highest percentage of their real income in the world. So Id be perfectly fine with lowering the corporate tax rates, simplifying the tax code, and saving some money on accountants, but broadening the tax base so that all of them pay a reasonable amount of tax on their profits. Thats what the Bowles-Simpson commission recommended, and its the right policy. Lower the rates to be competitive, but reduce the loopholes that cause unfair disparities. We all need to contribute something to help meet our shared challenges and responsibilities, including solving the debt problem." -- Bill Clinton (more) The full article actually has a lot of good suggestions. Always liked this guy, even if he is batting for the wrong team.
Tax policy creates incentive or disincentive. So if we tax labor real heavily, as in payroll taxes, then we disincentivize employers from hiring. If we tax goods at the store, we disincentivize consumer spending. We could go on on and on, but the idea is we need a complicated tax code so we don't focus too much tax on any one thing and we don't immunize other things from taxes. We need payroll tax, sales tax, inventory tax, etc, etc, etc..... Also, these have to be dynamic as society changes, these taxes need to revolve around that.
Also, per the CBO, cap gains accounts for 2-3% of all fed receipts, so no matter what the tax rate of cap gains, it is negligible.
<sigh> So you still make the same error even after I have pointed it out to you three times? Tax RATE is not tax AMOUNT. You claimed NJ charged the highest property tax RATE in the country, and I proved that claim false. NJ charges the highest property tax AMOUNT, not the highest RATE. The property tax RATE is total property tax revenue divided by total market value of all property. NH has the highest property tax RATE, though this can only be confirmed by comparing assessed values with actual market values. The source I gave you listed several states with higher property tax RATES than NJ. You asked for numbers; I provided the numbers. You denied the inverse relationship between property tax rate and property prices; I provided both the numbers and the calculated negative correlation coefficient. How many times do I have to prove you wrong before you will become willing to consider the possibility that you actually ARE wrong?
What you seem to be saying is that in order for tax collection to be as neutral as possible in its economic incentives and disincentives all economic activity should be taxed, but in a manner that is neutral in its economic effects. I believe a tiny transaction tax could accomplish that. It would be so trivial as to be effectively invisible for the great majority of transactions involving wages, consumer spending, and investment and so would not create any incentive or disincentive for the vast majority of day to day economic activity. It is also far simpler in collection and enforcement than all other more complicated tax regimes which are fraught with huge compliance and avoidance expenses.
Correct. Now, hold that thought -- and remember, if you tax something in fixed supply, like land, you still have exactly the same amount of it. No. We only "need" a complicated tax code because we are taxing all the wrong things, and the only way to make such unfair and economically harmful taxes bearable is to add a bunch of tweaks to take the edge off their inherent wrongness. We DON'T need a payroll tax. We DON'T need a sales tax. We DON'T need an inventory tax. We DON'T need income tax. We DON'T need a value added tax. What we need is somehow to find a willingness to know the fact that we should not even CONSIDER taxing the privately created value of production and exchange until we have conscientiously recovered the full publicly created value of government-issued and -enforced privileges. But lying apologists for privilege and injustice will say ANYTHING WHATEVER to prevent you from knowing that fact, as we have seen proved over and over again in this forum.
Transaction tax, is that another way of saying sales tax? If so and we had only sales tax then buying goods would be disincentivized and goods might not sell but for what was needed to survive. Of course, I may be wrong with what I interpret you calling a transaction tax. Not to mention it would have to be so huge as to make up for all other taxes now done away with, so that would be even more disincentivizing. I hate the complicated tax laws too, but they really are necessary to be, as you say, neutral.
So if we don't tax very much, as you want, then do we run the debt and become even bigger deficit spenders? And other than the feds can't write rubber checks, so where does the money come from for all the various services we need? Do we cut most svs? Do we throw disabled people out? Elderly? I guess we cut all svs that you and I don't need, well, until we need them that is. The gov runs so much better under high taxation rates. Doesn't make sense, but the numbers bear out. How about the military, counting M.E. spending, we spent more than the rest of the world combined and no one is after us. If you count basic military ops, wars and retirements, we spend an assload on teh military; shall we cut it in half for starters? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't property tax used to maintain roads, schools and the sort? So you're not taxing it as a one-time use, but as a constant use item. So if we don;t tax land, who pays for school, police, fire, etc? It's nice to think we don't pay taxes, but the more we pay the better we do.
Right. His error was in assuming that only economic ACTIVITY can be taxed. The property tax proves that assumption is false. It couldn't. A transaction tax taxes high-transaction-volume economic activities, and such activities are very sensitive to transaction costs. Tax those transactions, and they will simply vanish. Wrong. The vast majority of transactions by volume are in the financial markets, and if you tax them they will go away. Nonsense. Taxes on land are so simple to collect and enforce, they worked well even in ancient societies where hardly anyone could read. So, if you tax transactions, what is to stop people from engaging in transactions and not paying the tax?
No; a better tax system that only taxed what should be taxed would solve a lot of economic and social problems, so governments could spend a lot less money futilely trying to undo the damage our bad tax systems inflict. Recovery of the value the services create. Most should probably be cut. I advocate equal rights for all, not violation of the rights of working people to support privileges for whoever politicians define as poor, disabled, elderly, etc. We cut the services that no one needs, and that will not be wanted once the tax system is made fair and efficient. It runs better under high taxation of the things that should be taxed. To a large extent, this has been done accidentally, by people who didn't actually know what they were doing. Yes, slash the military and end the War on Drugs. It can be. But the value of land titles and other privileges comes from all other government-provided services and infrastructure, too. Yes, because the benefit to the privileged is a constant flow of unearned wealth, not a one-time benefit. The productive, of course. That is the point of taxing land instead of production. That depends entirely on what is taxed, and how.
This is getting away from land values. which is fine, but you'll have to explain how other rents are identified and paid for. knowing of course, that because the uber-wealthy have the money for lobbyists and buying their own politicians that they can often sidestep some forms of taxation. that doesn't translate into making sure that social programs are paid for. The problem with this may be that you'd have to lower expectations on doctors. Plus, the costs of training doctors in colleges and medical schools is very high, and one would be faced with long term debt if their income was lowered. Are you proposing to subsidize some or all of that education? How would it be calculated? It's not gibberish at all. Think about it, and you'll know that some businesses are more land intensive in the quest for profits. A financial firm may take up the space a city block, yet take in billions of dollars. A manufacturing plant may take up 100 city blocks, and not be as profitable because of the added costs of energy and materials and being labor intensive. A mining company may use up square miles of land... Tell me how it's calculated. Chances are that any set calculation can be found to have problems. And land value can be seen by appraisers to have far different values from one person to the next. Sale prices are the same, because as I've learned over the years, the value of the sale is only what the (potential) buyers are willing to pay. Land values have lots of variables. Because no one has shown me a good reason to leave a tried and true form of progressive taxation for another that may or may not be progressive.
Because we have the second highest rate that encourages tax avoidance and a horribly complicated system that allows it through expensive accounting practices. I believe Bill Clinton's point was we could actually raise the effective tax rate by lowering the charged rate and simplifying the process. Both government and business would spend less money on the process while allowing larger tax payment. Business pays less in the net, government gets more -- win, win. Kind of reminds me of how Steve Jobs approached digital music downloads and made them profitable.
The problem then becomes that after the new rates are made, loopholes are worked back into the system. Look at Reagan's Tax Reform act of 1986, and see how succeeding congresses have altered the simplification into give-aways for corporations.
A sales tax taxes only a tiny portion of the money that changes hands every day. A transaction tax would tax all exchanges of funds. Since the volume of all monetary exchange is orders of magnitude greater than what a sales tax is applied to the transaction tax can be orders of magnitude smaller and generate enough revenue to eliminate the need for all other taxes and their associated costs. For an in depth explanation of an electronic transaction tax you can go here: http://www.apttax.com/ For comments on a more limited financial transaction tax: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/the-growing-push-to-impose-a-transaction-tax/ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...LNG65G07SXKX01-36J42K1VAA091B053M3MU3M8L4.DTL It should be noted that the UK has had a financial transaction tax of 0.5% for some time and the US had one from 1914 until 1966 so this is not something new or unusual. Many economists and market observers have noted that a small financial transaction tax would significantly reduce shortest term market volatility by reining in much of the computer driven high speed, high volume, tiny margin trading like that which caused the flash crash. It would level the playing field a little for the great majority of market traders and have little effect on them. Some time ago Sarkozy floated the idea of a small transaction tax on all international financial transactions as a way to permanently fund aid for developing nations. The EU is seriously considering a financial transaction tax as a way to reduce market volatility and fund EU governing functions. All I asserted was that only economic activity needs to be taxed. And that would be a bad thing? The flash crash was the end result of lowering transaction costs to as near to zero as possible. Financial markets without transaction costs can become extremely volatile. Rather than employ some artificial mechanism to reduce only some few known actions that create unacceptable market volatility it would be far preferable to impose a minimum transaction cost that would preclude them entirely at a systemic level which would also prevent future innovations from reintroducing the problem. No they won't. There is still a great need for people to conduct trade in the financial markets and there always will be. A few of the high volume small margin computer traders would likely quit the market but that would be to the advantage of all the other traders. There is a lot of problems with property tax collection. The simplest and most fraught is in the fair valuation of the land, something that has plagued tax payers and collectors forever. It would be sufficient to collect taxes from only electronic transactions, if people want to avoid the tax by paying cash it matters not. Cash transaction volumes are trivial compared to the electronic transaction volume and at every other point along the transaction chain a tax is collected anyway.
No, that's just false. The UK's Stamp Duty on stock transactions does not even apply to most stock transactions, let alone to all financial transactions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobin_...e_with_stock_transaction_tax_.28Stamp_Duty.29 Yes, but that's a different issue. There is no doubt that such taxes reduce trading volume. They just don't and can't raise significant revenue. But in fact, it doesn't need to be taxed, and in general should not be taxed. I don't know. I just know such a tax cannot raise significant revenue. Tax it, and people will find ways to need it less. Not compared to other taxes that raise comparable revenue. Fair and accurate valuation of land is actually a trivial exercise, especially with the use of computer models and full transaction data in electronic format. The only problem with land valuation is that landowners often try to make it UNfair, to their own advantage. They are NOW because electronic transactions are not taxed. No, it is not. That is very much the point.
Taxing the market value of rent collection privileges would be an easy way. That argument applies to all forms of taxation that reflect ability to pay. Nobody said justice would not be opposed by those who profit from injustice. It translates into solving the social problems that make many of the social programs necessary. One need only observe the market, which calculates land value very well. Yes, in fact it is. Think about it, and you'll know the value of the land they use measures what they are taking from society. Profit (net of rents) measures what they are CONTRIBUTING TO society. How does that harm anyone? And it deprives everyone else of the advantages those 100 city blocks enjoy, and should justly compensate them for that deprivation. So why should the financial company, which is not using up or depriving others of those things, pay taxes to subsidize the factory or mine, which are? Same way buyers and sellers calculate it. Good computer models are very accurate. Land is far easier to value than improvements. The market does not care about how individuals value an item, other than the two individuals who want it most. All of which the market measures. We've shown you lots of good reasons, and have explained why it is inherently progressive. You just refuse to know facts that prove you wrong.
