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There is a possible objection to Georgism: "what if I bought a house, and it's value have risen, so now I can't afford the tax?" I thought about a simple solution, and would like to read thoughts about it: instead of taking money, the state could gradually own more and more of the property. When the property owners dies and their children are adults, the state will sell its share of the property or take its worth from the inheritance.
Yearly rent on the house is greater than yearly taxes on the house, right? As you give the government shares of your house, tax shares will convert into rental shares and you will have to pay the government more and more. A death spiral ensues and you lose the house.
"What if the government doesn't charge rent on its shares?" Then everyone lets the government own 99% of their house to avoid the taxes.
A lot of the value of Georgism is incentivizing people who don't value a property to move out so people who do value the property can move in.
(off-the-cuff opinion)
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1Right, missed that it makes your being there renting. How fast would the spiral be in your estimation? How fast would you lose the house in normal circumstances? By the way, I'm not sure that the tax is universally less than the rent. My understanding is that land speculation in Israel is mostly about expeting the prices to keep going up rather than the current rent.
I'm not sure what exactly you're proposing to transfer to the state.
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The right to charge rent on the land? But under Georgism the state already owns that right.
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The structure you built on the land? But that structure, without the land, is a depreciating asset. Chances are the next user of the land will just tear it down and build something else. So you might not get enough money for retirement by offering up the structure alone.
My understanding is that under Georgism the state is supposed to be payed for value increases, not for usage. And that it can't just kick you out and put someone else in a long as you pay its honest estimate of the value increase. So it is still not the same as the state owning a land and being able to sell it to the next user.
This is equally applicable under normal law, under which property taxes already exist, they just tax both structures and land instead of just land.
Wouldn't a Georgist just recommend selling the house (or renting it out to wealthier people) and moving to somewhere you can afford?
They probably would. One trouble is that there are typically substantial economic losses (both extra expenditures and risks to income) involved in moving house involuntarily, on top of losses in aspects that aren't typically tracked economically.
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