For a very brief period of time several places in South Carolina tried to tax idle land. The accessor would try to figure out what the most valuable improvement to the land would be and then asses based on that.
It was a horrible failure. While I don't know of any corruption, you can imagine that there was an opportunity for it. What did happen is that landlords would throw up the absolute cheapest building that he could in order to avoid the assesor coming up with some idea. It turns out that cheap often vacant buildings have all sorts of externalities that idle land does not have. I don't think the experiment lasted a full two years. Mitch ----- Original Message ----- From: Fred Foldvary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 11:39 pm Subject: Re: Tax with positive growth effect > --- Alexander Guerrero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Well before yo tax "idle" land, you must be "sure" that the land > > is "wasted", > > No, the whole rationale for taxing land value is that it does not > matter what the site owner does with the land. Those who "waste" it > will have to pay the same rate as those who maximize rental income. > > > And, believe me, this is something which has been > > always very difficult to assess. > > How do you know? > Insurance companies manage to appraise land value, because they don't > want the insured to collect on that if the building burns down. > > > The big > > question is : Does the land lord like to have idle land? > > If he does, fine; let him pay for that consumption. > > Fred Foldvary > > > ===== > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. > http://personals.yahoo.com >
