Lol what would you do if just nobody happens to want to rent your unit? You have to pay an increasing tax for the rest of time? You couldn't sell it because who would want to buy it.
Not a sensible idea.
Not a sensible idea.
So, units in areas of high land value get taxed more and more, incentivising either using the lot for something people want, or selling it to someone who will. Whereas units in areas of low land value get taxed much less, reflecting the higher difficulty in getting good value from it.
Can I assess the value of your house at $5, and then tax you for not selling it to me at that price?
Bizarre.
Presumably the local government, they already do this to calculate property tax across North America, and getting only the value of the land is easier than the value of the land plus property on top of it. It really isn't changing much in this regard.
> Presumably the local government
Actually it's an independent agency of the provincial government:
> The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) administers property assessments and appeals of assessment in the province of Ontario, Canada.[2][3][4] MPAC determines the assessed value for all properties across Ontario. This is provided in the form of an Assessment Roll, which is delivered to municipalities throughout the province on the second Tuesday in December. Municipalities then take the assessment roll, and calculate property taxes for each individual property in their jurisdiction. MPAC complains that taxpayers often confuse MPAC's role as an assessment agency for taxes; MPAC responds that it only provides assessments. Municipalities set the tax rates and distribute the tax burden based on the assessed values provided by MPAC.
[…]
> Every municipality in Ontario is a member of MPAC, which is governed by a board of directors composed of taxpayer, municipal, and provincial representatives.[6]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_Property_Assessment_...
Local government taxes (“shire rates”) are indirectly based on “Gross Rental Value” (that is, if the rented out the property at market value, how much would you expect to receive per year?).
There is also land tax, which is based on undeveloped property value.
Most commercial leases have the tenant pay the rates & taxes. If you own a property with 10 equally-sized shops, and one of them is empty, then you by law must pay 1/10 of the rates & taxes (and any other outgoings, like repairs). You cannot split the outgoings nine ways. This acts as a vacancy disincentive.
> increases every month
It can't be both things at the same time.
And who's setting this land value? If it's on the market and nobody's buying then we don't know the value.
Not saying I agree with the underlying idea, just confused about why “increases ever month” necessarily means it cannot be “tied to the value of the property” in a `calculateTax(propValue, timeEmpty)` sort of way.
This would essentially only happen if you rented in a mega high crime area, which means landlords would be incentivized to do something about crime.
It doesn't seem totally unreasonable. Is there an equivalent of adverse posession (squatters rights) for retail?
There are pros and cons to this idea.
If the state owns the property, they lose the opportunity cost of taxes paid by a private owner. So, they're heavily incentivized to return it to private ownership as soon as possible... Or to consolidate several such properties into something that is sellable, or to repurpose the property into something people need, like more housing.
Penalty for lying would be steep.
I don't think lack of interest would be a big problem in most areas.
Yes--there will be skirters of the tax, but would it be worth a big fine?
Software engineers should understand this. Imagine if it was 10x harder to delete a line than write a new one. Also, no forking and no starting over.