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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

Who's assessing the land value?

Can I assess the value of your house at $5, and then tax you for not selling it to me at that price?

Bizarre.

I love comments like this. Condescending, confident, completely ignorant of extremely basic concepts relevant to the topic under discussion, like the 300 year existence of property tax assessors in every county in north america

If that's what you love then I think you have found your graceland friend.

In Australia, property valuation is a regulated profession. We have state-run land registry departments that tell the tax office what value to assume for each piece of land for tax purposes. If you disagree with the valuation, you can pay for your own private one (from a registered valuer).

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.

> Who's assessing the land value?

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.

>> Who's assessing the land value?

> 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_...

One proposal I like for this is "cost" from the book radical markets - owners have to state a price for their property quarterly, are taxed according to that price, and must accept offers to purchase at that price.

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