John FitzGerald, says Properties need to be taxed (( Properly)) to achieve fairer wealth distribution,

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My local authority is DCC and they are useless at most things.

If I could be guaranteed to have regular road repairs, nice parks and proper street-sweeping I would happily pay €200 a year more in LPT.

It would materially improve the value of my house too.
 
Purple said:
The policy of not having any wealth tax.
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That has nothing to do with the political right in this country, who are totally locked out of government at all levels.

The more sensible among the rest know that a wealth tax is a non-runner in a jurisdiction where the vast majority of all wealth is tied up in private homes and where there have only been a few decades of decent wealth accumulation since independence.

The only political parties pushing for a wealth tax are the Marxist far left, of which People Before Profit are the most prominent.
 
T McGibney said:
That's nothing to do with the political right in this country, who are totally locked out of government at all levels.
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Wealth tax is a left wing policy. The biggest political parties we have populist pro-cyclical parties which are left wing on most issues but know that rich people (i.e. old people) vote and so look after them too.
 
T McGibney said:
Good luck with People Before Profit running the country.

We'll need it.
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They're Marxist Communists. FF and FG are all left wing parties when it comes to spending money and buying votes but are populist enough not to be in favour of increasing wealth taxes. The Shinners claim to be more left wing but want to abolish the small wealth tax we have.
 
T McGibney said:
That's not remotely only true in Ireland where a large proportion of the national housing estate is permanently exempted from LPT.
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Yes, that's the point, Tom.
T McGibney said:
Also, if I significantly improve and thus double the market value of my property, its LPT charge will increase concomitantly, but the improvements will not add a cent to "the cost of (publicly provided) service that substantially enhance the value of the property".
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True. The aim with property taxes overall is that the overall tax take should cover the cost of services provided to properties. Within that there will inevitably be some cross-subsidisation between property owners, since it's not possible to measure the effect of property services on property values on a property-by-property basis.
 
T McGibney said:
Don't those who don't own properties benefit from public services too?
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Sure. But a significant additional benefit accrues to those who own properties; the value of their properties is increased. Thus the funding of these services out of income tax operates as a mechanism to transfer wealth from non-property-owners to property owners.

This is undesirable for a number of reasons, but one of them is that operates to increase the price of property, so making it more difficult for a non-owner to buy a property.
 
Fortune said:
I think the only people who don't benefit are the homeless (I'm only thinking about provision of utilities here).
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This works differently for different services.

If you look at something like sewage or water supply, obvously that's a service delivered directly to properties and it substantially improves the value of the properties to which it is supplied; that's its primary economic effect. But obviously there's also a wider societal benefit in e.g. not having cholera epidemics that everyone benefits from, even the homeless.

If you look at something like public transport or schools, the benefits are more widely spread. Everyone benefits from being able to get the bus to work, whether they own a property or not, and employers benefit from their workers being able to come to work. And everyone benefits from children being educated, whether or not they own a property (and indeed whether or not they have any children). But at the same time the provision of bus services, schools, etc does increase the value of the properties that they serve, and that increase in value should be captured for the benefit of the taxpayers at large.
 
TomEdison said:
the value of their properties is increased
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Increased by what exactly?

More often than not, property owners in a given area oppose proposals for new amenities in their areas, for fear of hurting the values of their properties.

I read of a case in the past week where locals were objecting to the opening of a new doctor's surgery near them.

And in many locations across the country, the range of local services is contracting rather than expanding as large numbers of pubs, corner shops, butchers, small garages and the likes permanently close down.

Yet none of that seems ever to impact negatively on house values?

Yet you repeatedly claim that various boondoggles installed by the State inflate values.

Both cannot simultaneously be true.

I think it's patently obvious that demand relative to supply is the key driver of property values.
 
I'm talking about services provided by the taxpayer (like sewage, water, public transport); not services provide by the market (like pubs, corner shops, local businesses).

Nobody objects to the provision of sewage and water, and they obviously raise the value of the properties they serve; how much do you think you could sell your house for if it was not served by mains sewage and water and was not served by a public road?
 
TomEdison said:
If you look at something like sewage or water supply, obvously that's a service delivered directly to properties and it substantially improves the value of the properties to which it is supplied; that's its primary economic effect
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Two words: water charges.
TomEdison said:
If you look at something like public transport or schools, the benefits are more widely spread. Everyone benefits from being able to get the bus to work, whether they own a property or not, and employers benefit from their workers being able to come to work. And everyone benefits from children being educated, whether or not they own a property (and indeed whether or not they have any children)
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Two words: income taxes.
 
TomEdison said:
I'm talking about services provided by the taxpayer (like sewage, water, public transport); not services provide by the market (like pubs, corner shops, local businesses).
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We know that.

Your claim that property values rise and fall according to the availability of services is plausible until we remember that the widespread loss of pubs, corner shops, butchers, small garages etc nationwide over the past 15 years have had no impact on property values anywhere.
 
T McGibney said:
Two words: water charges.
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Water charges cover about 10% of the cost of water services; the rest is paid out of general taxes.
T McGibney said:
Two words: income taxes.
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Yes, that's the problem, Tom. Why should income taxpayers who don't own properties pay to enhance the value of the properties they don't own? Shouldn't that be paid for by the owners of the properties? If not, why not?
 
TomEdison said:
Water charges cover about 10% of the cost of water services; the rest is paid out of general taxes.
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My water costs me 100% of the cost of getting it into my taps and my taxes pay for 90% of the cost of yours.

You should be paying 100% of that cost in water charges.
 
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