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Joshua Vincent: Posted on Friday, April 20, 2012 11:49 AM
Independence? Perhaps, but not likely
Recently, an
active and conservative member of the Republican Party in central Pennsylvania
sent UrbanTools a copy of something called the "Property
Tax Independence Act" (PTIA)
with the interesting subtitle of "Liberty Equality and
Prosperity". The legislation – more
accurately a proposal for a constitutional amendment in the state of
Pennsylvania – Is given a seemingly official sobriquet of “House
Bill 1776.”
As yet, this is not an
actual bill however. |
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jrv: Posted on Monday, April 09, 2012 4:32 PM
The past 15 years have been very kind to India and its emerging new economy. The past few years however have not been so nice.One problem have been the traditionally sclerotic planning and development authorities who have been sluggish in releasing land for development, along with the overall mistrust of the free flow of capital and labor, dependent on the classic mid-20th century model of Fabian socialism.
Recently, the Indian government reasserted its heavy hand by overturning the previously independent Indian judiciary by putting a tax on international partnerships and acquisitions retroactively to 1962. |
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Joshua Vincent: Posted on Wednesday, March 07, 2012 4:16 PM
From the Collar City: You are Invited to a discussion on a new way to tax
Can your town use a new approach to in finance, planning and its relationships with citizens?
Property taxes are both the main source of revenue for local governments, and at the same time the most unpopular. Economically, property taxes as they are currently structured, reward blight and disinvestment, while discouraging real estate markets from operating in more urbanized areas. One tool used by dozens of cities in the US in hundreds of cities elsewhere is the land value tax is the land value tax. |
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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Abandoning outdated land values will harmonize Taiwan's many species of land and property taxes...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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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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