this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 46 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I think the most novel proposal we put forward in the report is taxing the total real estate holdings of large landowners, as opposed to individually taxing each property using the aforementioned brackets. This could entail situations where large landowners own a portfolio of properties, each falling below that $3 million threshold, but that cumulatively add up to tens of millions of dollars. In this scenario, by taxing the total holdings instead of each property separately, these owners would no longer be able to avoid paying those progressive property tax rates.

There's a few interesting bits to this article, but I like this one the most. Property taxes on the cumulative amount of property a person or company owns is huge. It provides a punishment for buying up large amounts of property.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

People already pay taxes on cumulative properties. You need this plus the progressive tax idea.

[–] cybersandwich 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm 100% on board with this. Hell, why not both?

We could also do a residence + 1 option where your house and 1 other property are taxed reasonably. The any property beyond that is taxed as escalating rates that ramp up significantly for each additional property.

[–] xT1TANx 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Because the corporations will never allow it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

How, exactly, does a human population become so meek that they are willing to let a piece of paper control them?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I think the concern is that:

  • The rich would try to skirt this with numbered or shell companies, or family or other relations.
  • The rich would pass this onto tenants.

Now, the solution is to a) couple this with rent control, b) exempt purpose-built rentals from this endeavour, and c) punish serial transgressions with confiscation.

Frankly, I think the idea of punishing malfeasance by landlords with confiscation to be just awesome: if you're a predatory slumlord, we take the house and repurpose it as RGI public housing. Do I worry about the government becoming predatory? Yes, yes I do, but in this case it's a lesser-of-two-evils thin.

[–] AngryCommieKender 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Corporations shouldn't be allowed to own residential property in the first place. Make it illegal.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Housing cooperatives are non-profit corporations that own property so that they can provide residential services to the members and owners of that corporation.

You know, I'm actually not 100% sure what the difference between a condominium and a cooperative is, but condos are also corporations.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I agree but then one of two things has to happen.

  1. No one is allowed to own property
  2. Corporations need to stop being classified as people

Guess which one would come first? Be honest.

[–] AngryCommieKender 3 points 10 months ago

There are already strong cases to be made that corporations aren't people, especially if you look into how flimsy that argument was in the first place, but I take your point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Slumlords and overpriced rentals can be storage issues though. It can be a nice place, but if you're paying $2k+/mo for a 1b1b that's way too fucking much even if it's in good condition

[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are so many great ideas that could have been implemented by now, and have been implemented in other countries. But the Liberals have only instituted policies to make it worse. Only now that the youth vote is leaving them they may at least pay lip service to it. It's honestly disgusting.

Only the greens have put forward anything that would help stem the investor class from depriving Canadians of a place to live.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Preach. I voted Green. Mike shows promise and he's consistent with messaging. Next election I'll more than happily stump for them.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Triple property taxes for units not occupied by owners. Quick fix.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

Forbid corporate ownership of anything under 4 units/12 bedrooms, and require them own 100% of any contiguous building over 4 units. Added taxes will just be passed on to residents. Corporations are used to aggregate money (both public corps and family/friend groups) and avoid taxes.

Then make a financial law that forbids making property loans with collateral which includes any real property that is not the property being purchased. No condo bros buying units and then re-fi-ing out to buy more.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The issue is owners just fake the documents when your property tax or vacancy tax mail arrives. Friend of mine rents basement suite, landlord has not lived in main house for over two years, it has been empty the entire time. somebody comes every few weeks to collect mail.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Then why not check on it occasionally and put a hefty fine on it when they fake the documents? If you cannot make a new and important law because rich people will try to bypass it than the state is useless.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

Agreed.

People forging documents to evade taxes? That's fraud. Put them in jail or if they're a foreign national; take their property until they set foot in the country; then put them in jail.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

There definitetly should be a better method. An honour system by mailing and online affirmation of occupied unit is useless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

You'd have to have someone go door-to-door at random intervals for an absolute check, I think, but that isn't a bad thing provided that the people doing it are paid a reasonable wage.

[–] ttmrichter 1 points 10 months ago

Whistleblower law that lets people who finger this kind of landlord take ownership of the property at a nominal fee for processing the paperwork. Call it $25.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (5 children)

how does that not just increase rent?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

We still don't physically have enough houses. It's quick, but not a fix.

[–] UltraMagnus0001 16 points 10 months ago

how about prevent cooperate take over of nin commercial property, especially foreign takeover. Look at how they're swooping in on the victims in Hawaii after the fires.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Land value tax would fix this.

[–] chuckleslord 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Georgism making a comeback baby!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I hope so. Subscribe to [email protected] if you haven't already.

[–] Fedizen 10 points 10 months ago

this would work. It would make things like the 2009 banking crisis more of a crisis but maybe thats not a bad thing.

the other thing is downward pressure needs to be applied to the market: new units sold at below market value to people that don't already own homes

[–] Hotdogman 7 points 10 months ago

So Basically, there's always going to be a crisis. Cool thanks.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The solution is to build more housing.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (3 children)

So BlackRock can buy it and rent it out to people for $3,000 a month? What use is more housing if rich people who own 1,000 houses are just going to buy it? The solution is more complicated.

[–] SamuelRJankis 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The solution is complicated because people can't agree on the problem.

As with your comment and subject of the article there is plenty of people that are perfectly happy with the housing crisis as long as the remain to the favourable side of it.

[–] cybersandwich 2 points 10 months ago

Partly because it varies regionally, but there are definitely some consistent threads woven across the country that could be pulled.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

If there is too much inventory the price for rent will go down.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That is part of the solution, the othee part is not letting a foreign owner buy a place and leave it vacant.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (13 children)

Why do people always specify "foreign" owners? I don't see how being born in Canada should enable one to hoard housing.

[–] ttmrichter 2 points 10 months ago

Because the people who are the actual problem love that Canadians are looking abroad for the source of the problem instead of a wee tad closer to home.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

That would require making more land and increasing the capacity of existing high-use, aging infrastructure for water, sewage, power, and trash. I can find you a cheap place to live out in the sticks. Hell, the town down the road from me has brand new, 3BR 2.5BA 1900SF homes with garage for $270k (USD). You only need 2BR/1BA and 1100SF? $150k. Thing is, it's a 30-40 minute drive to the center of my 200,000 person MSA. But this isn't a fun, entertaining city with excellent walkability, public transit, a major airport, and multiple concert venues and public spaces so people aren't flocking to move out here.

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