this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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Me: Mom, can we please have Huurcommissie?
Mom: No, we have Huurcommissie at home.
Huurcommissie at home: landlord fined for charging 'too little' in rent
What the actual fuck
The argument is: if your rent is that cheap, you probably have a side deal going on (like extra pay or work for housing) to avoid taxes and/or social security contributions.
I'm not saying the present system is great, I'm just explaining it and unfortunately some people indeed try "save" taxes that way.
I'm not sure this is exactly the argument, I understood it as: "You rent out so cheap you don't want to make a profit, and if you don't want to make a profit you can't make deductions in relation to your properties." Which I don't find great either.
Mh, I don't think this only affects deductions. Otherwise people could just waive their right do deduct costs related to the housing units discussed in the article. I don't think this would make a huge difference, i.e. I don't think the deductible costs are that significant.
However, if you don't pay your janitor or your nanny properly, but provide them with cheap housing instead, you can (illegally) save a lot of money.
Anyway, that's my guess, but I'm very open to new knowledge. :)
I looked into it a bit more and seems like we are both somewhat right: https://www.tz.de/muenchen/stadt/guenstige-jetzt-jagt-ihn-das-finanzamt-das-ist-ein-unding-preise-muenchen-vermieter-65-verlangt-zu-zr-91597287.html
Not trying to defend the decision, but as far as I know, the reasoning is that if you charge significantly less than you could, it might be because you have other undisclosed agreements with the tenants, like them doing some extra chores for you, repairing the flat or something else. This way, you could avoid a lot of taxes. The sentence also doesn't seem to be a fine in the narrow sense, but rather a demand of additional taxes. If I'm not mistaken, it's perfectly legal to charge very little for a flat, but you still have to pay taxes as if you would have rented it out for a regular price.
Itβs weird to me that the taxes are based on how much your charge your tenants? Not on land value, or land use
Income tax is not a thing where you live?
That should be separate & regardless of rent (or no rent), but rent is income and should be treated as such.
If rent was taxed at 95% we would see much less inflation pressures & more homeowners.
We would see construction grinding to a halt and owners not bothering to rent out their flats anymore because it wouldn't be worth the trouble.
Ofc construction would continue just as it did for thousands of years - and because of the exact same reasons rents can get that high: people just need to live somewhere. Homes have intrinsic value and are necessary regardless of monetary value.
It's not like the housing market didn't exist before the value increase in the western world (so in the last 70 years).
There would however be less investments into homes, less financial incentive to build extra homes you don't intend to use personally. So yes, fewer places to rent, more homeowners. And secondary market would function just as good, people move around all the time, needs change over ones life, etc - buying and selling would be easier. Prices would still vary a lot, but would reflect the majority (more democratic prices?).
For people to build or buy their own homes they need to be able to afford them. They can't, which is why they rent. If landlords don't offer flats for rent anymore, people don't magically have more money to buy or build.
Corporation and private investors build rental properties because they aim to profit from them, and if that isn't the case anymore, their construction activity slows down and then stops. As can currently be seen e.g. in Germany.
The only way to effectively counter rising rents in cities is public, non profit construction and decentralization efforts (so people don't all flock to the few places that are hip to live in).
Well, no, flat prices wound crash in that case & again be affordable. It's not like project devs wouldn't build stuff & sell flats, it's just that the financing wouldn't come from financial industry directly (but via retail mortgages). Also less inflationary pressure on building materials and labor.
And ... saying that ppl can't afford to buy so they rent is bs if the rent is higher that the mortgage would have been.
That's why socialist countries have less homeless ppl (and more homeowners) and why in a free market you would want to have homeless people (otherwise you are not maximizing your yield/rent).
Only if the supply exceeded the demand which just can't be assumed - that's the reason prices are high in cities in the first place. Construction prices have no reason to drop as they are driven by labour and materials. So only wealthy people and companies would have the means to build and companies wouldn't do so for lack of profits in renting.
Which might happen in some weird fringe cases, but if the owner knows basic maths it usually won't. You'd set rent at least high enough to repay your own loan on the property and make some profit.
And if it were true why not buy right now? Because the bank won't give you a loan. And that too wouldn't suddenly change.
You just showed why prices would go up if rent were taxed that way (and why the prices are so high at the moment). No one thinks a small flat is worth 1500β¬/month (or what have you), but they need a place to live near their job. So they'll pay whatever it costs. Same with deregulated health care, like in the US.
Also, for what it's worth. Even without the construction costs and without any profit margin landlords must pay for home repairs. I don't think 5% would even cover that
Taxes absolutely don't effect market prices in such cases/markets. Because if your are saying that rent taxes would just fall on tenants (basically increasing rent) then landlords are stupid now because they could obviously charge more rent.
It's like saying McDonald's paying employees more would result in pricier burgers - it simply wouldn't bcs McD is already charging the absolute max it can in given circumstances. It would however lower their profit margin. And still, anything resulting in real profit is still worth doing (that's why we have McD franchises in Europe too). Or like saying giving a tax exemption to McD would lower the price or burgers - it wouldn't, price is market determined and not in direct correlation with costs or taxes.
Where what your are saying is true is in markets with cost-based prices (ie minimal/competitive profit margins). In case of real estate that would mean the majority of rent wound go in repairs or upgrades. Which is not true for the last century, but RE yields are determined and tracked based on rent. So if I want to double my property's value & have to double the rent. And since people need to live somewhere, they have to pay. If yields are not above market (like 10y local govies), money moves out of RE and into financial markets.
Or simply getting the "rest" of the rent in cash
Ah this is why you need you to pay your monthly minimum rent insurance.