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Comment by sumedh | Hacker News Reader

> just aggressively tax owners based on the land value.

What about old people who bought the house long time back when it was cheap but dont have good source of income to pay the inflated tax?

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What about the old people who didn't buy a house a long time back and now face high rents? Why is it always a selective group of old people we are supposed to carefully design policy to perfectly accommodate?

High enough land value tax, consistently applied, will make the land cheaper and affordable to said old couple, because it neutralizes the phenomenon that land continuously increases in value as long as the population keeps growing.

Then they can cash out, realize their gains, buy a modest bungalow, and live out their golden years in style. Seems fine.

That "modest bungalow" might be 50 kilometers away. These "old folks" lose their entire local social network, and perhaps have to buy a car.

a car that they might not even be able to drive.

I never understood why people consider equity to be essentially equivalent to liquid money.

Because home equity is highly liquid. You can refinance your mortgage (and take money out), or take out a reverse mortgage (which pays you monthly in exchange for eventual ownership), or a home equity loan. Tons of ways to turn your home equity into cash.

In a sane world, they could buy or rent a reasonably sized apartment in the new development going up nearby.

They can defer their taxes at a low interest rate.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/taxes/property-taxes/annu...

What happens when the accumulated taxes oustripes the value of the home?

Essentially the rules should be that who ever benefited 50 years ago should be given priority to continue benefiting now?

Provide an exemption or inflation control for the standard parcel size in an area when used as a primary residence.

Sucks to suck. Sell your land and get all that value back, that's how life works when you're old.

Those poor millionaires. My heart bleeds for them.

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