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Joshua Vincent: Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 5:30 PM
Abandoning outdated land values will harmonize Taiwan's many species of land and property taxes...
(photo: CW)
The tax policies of Taiwan has always made it a successful outlier, one of the few Asian Tigers to prosper right after World War II, and doing well until the recent global slump. A lynchpin of that policy is value-based land taxation. Even though the agricultural land tax is moribund (since 1985), it has been argued that the goal of that tax, to free up large estates (in the manner Denmark's |
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Joshua Vincent: Posted on Monday, February 06, 2012 2:26 PM
Welsh Land Value Tax
Wales AP Member Mark Drakeford
Without fear of contradiction, it is easy to assert that the concept of tax reformnowfrom global to local has taken off in the past three years. The global economic downturn still lasts, and postindustrial areas in North America, Europe are in particular need of a way to level the playing field with more efficient and competitive Asian, African and Latin American markets. Although governments may dither, leaders have emerged all over the world ready to challenge dominant, smug yet failed policies. |
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Joshua Vincent: Posted on Friday, February 03, 2012 1:39 PM
The clocks ticks on bad tax policy as the big dogs jump in.
Not too long ago, a Blair wallah sniffed at a land value tax as akin to the window tax of 18th Century yore. In the face of a very possible recurring recession, the easy condescension is increasingly out of place...
Background: UrbanTools always looks internationally to developments in other think tanks and nations for a sense that old methods taxation and finance cease to be based in terms of left or right, but rather on what works and what doesn't.
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Joshua Vincent: Posted on Thursday, February 02, 2012 6:13 PM
Failure is not an option: Connecticut Building Permits Slide
There is no state as well situated for growth and prosperity than Connecticut. Just beyond reach of New York's staggeringly high taxes and overlooking the placid Long Island Sound, crossed by rail and Interstate connections, and with one large airport, Connecticut has parlayed these advantages into a couple of centuries of growth, jobs and wealth.
Yet, slippage in the US economy as a whole coupled with a growing rich/poor divide ( |
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Posted on Monday, January 30, 2012 5:42 PM
Connecticut, a state blessed with great wealth but also great poverty, has examined the idea of permitting Connecticut cities - almost by definition poor and dis-invested - to have the option to enact property tax reform in the shape of a land value tax, which Governor Jody Rell signed into law for New Londonin 2009. The reasons were clear: the decay of Connecticut towns was proportional to the damage that sprawl has wrought on the formerly bucolic countryside, with farms replaced by subdivisions, and bank-breaking infrastructure costs. |
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Posted on Monday, January 30, 2012 4:50 PM
Steve Hanke and Stephen Walters have been writing on taxation and economic policy for years, with close analyses of what makes urban areas hit or miss. Their latest piecein the Wall Street Journal emphasizes why some cities are more stable than others: reasonable taxes. Some might disagree that low property taxes are the driver of growth, although that helps. Taxation on mobile forms of wealth, like incomes, commerce and sales hurt more.
Happily, respected Case Western economics professor |
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Joshua Vincent: Posted on Friday, January 13, 2012 5:35 PM
UrbanTools got underway as the Henry George Foundation of America in Pittsburgh in 1926. Through the years, some of the most respected elected officials in Western Pennsylvania such as Pennsylvania Gov. David Lawrence, and mayors Scully and McNair served on our Board of Directors.
During those 85+ years, Pittsburgh and other Allegheny County cities and school districts have utilized land value taxation as a tool to discourage private land banking and to encourage all levels of investment and labor inside municipal boundaries. |
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Posted on Friday, January 06, 2012 3:17 PM
Quick quiz: what's the best use of this Irish land? Irish property bust provides literal fodder.
The New Year brought the first iteration of the property tax in Ireland. In one way, it is a welcome advance in a nation where a land value bubble still reverberates like so many Block Buster bombs.
Hectares of half-built or abandoned"luxury" condos and homes littler the greater Dublin area, after the spectacle of wild-eyed lending that led to property loans making up easily mare than 2/3rds of all bank lending. |
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Joshua Vincent: Posted on Monday, December 19, 2011 6:00 PM
Baltimore's property tax in need of a restructuring, not a
quick fix Fells Point: Back from the Brink
The sad reality of any tax program meant to help working and
middle-class homeowners is how quickly the original intent can be lost, and the
reform program can actually lead to further iniquities.
That is the case in the city of Baltimore Maryland where the Homestead Property
Tax Creditacts as a tax cap that prevents increases in a property's value
from adding to the tax bill the homeowner actually pays. |
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Joshua Vincent: Posted on Friday, December 16, 2011 2:38 PM
Motorola going Mobile? Not onmywatch.
There are very few states where of New Jersey would feel bullish enough to try and poach a business from a high tax climate. Yet, Illinois has made the grade, thanks to an increase in income and corporate tax that roughly doubled at the beginning of 2011. Governor Pat Quinn actually went onto the floor of the Illinois Legislature when the measure passed to thank the Sens. and Reps.
Unintended Consequences?
The confidence of neighboring states took a hit, though, when the larger corporate entities, such as Sears, the Chicago Mercantile Exhchange and Caterpillar, sensibly started exploring cheaper places to do business. |
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