Comment by Honytawk@lemmy.zip on Landlords should have to pay income tax on their rental properties regardless of whether they're rented out or not.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/12162

Why? Because apparently they need some more incentive to keep units occupied. Also, even though a property might be vacant, there’s still imputed rental income there. Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself instead of receiving an actual rent check from a tenant. That imputed rent ought to be taxed like any other income.

Landlords should pay 100% tax on their empty rentals.

You’ll see how fast they will accept any and all new tenants, at a much lower price.

Which would also flood the market with housing, lowering the prices even more until renting becomes an actual beneficial option compared to buying and paying off a loan.

Real estate would also not be seen as an investment anymore.

They should pay 100% tax on all rentals.

100% on their rental value, which for many landlords is directly tied to massive loans they’re underwater on. That’s why they’d rather have unoccupied rentals with nominally high values than reduce the rental price to match the market and have their loans called in.

The rental value would be $0.

Contrary to lemmy.world logic, 0% of 0 is 0

No, the rental value is the nominal price of the rental. This is extremely simple, a child could understand this. The landlords have gotten loans based on the assumed rental income, which is not $0.

They aren’t making any income on rent. So what % would an income tax have to be to be >0$ exactly?

Seriously? OK, you must not really have thought about this before. They are listing their properties for rent but nobody is renting them. They’re listing those properties at the nominal rental value. So the tax would be on that nominal rental cost. This is like, babytown frolics level simple to connect the dots on even if you don’t agree with it - understanding this should have clicked like two replies back.

Real estate should be considered an investment. It’s one of the few things people invest in that is actually valuable. It’s the speculative and labrynthine financial markets that are the problem in that regard.

The only reason mega-renters like Blackrock and Vanguard are able to monolithically buy property in the first place is because of dubious speculative earnings and government bailouts.

It’s not surprising that home ownership was actually a lot higher 60 years ago.

But why should it be anything but a personal investment? I’m not seeing your point there. Isn’t it better for everyone to decommodify housing?

Why should it be anything but a personal investment?

What do mean? I don’t see how what I said negates that.

Isn’t it better for everyone to decommodify housing?

Not really no. Commodfication is why things used to be cheap. High [insert item here] prices are directly related to money printing, corporate welfare and regulations that are designed to raise the barrier of entry for normal people.

Commodifying things makes them cheap? As opposed to decommodifying? That makes no sense

What is an example of decommodifying?

Nationalized healthcare

Making something unsuitable for investment so we preserve its primary function (houses being a home to a family and not an airbnb or an empty rental).

Why should it be an investment at all?

So that people can decouple their time from their earning power.

Why should a human necesssity be an investment?

Because there is more than enough for everyone.

There’s more than enough housing that everyone can afford to own? Why are there homeless people then?

Really butchering the language here to not say “passive income” or “making other people work for me”

I don’t have a problem with either one of those things so pick your favorite.

People require to land to live on, it is a basic necessity, and basic necessities absolutely should not be considered an investment.

What should people invest in then? How is land ownership handled? Etc etc etc

What should people invest in then?

Literally any other type of business.

How is land ownership handled?

People should still be able to own land for their own personal use. Land used to extract wealth on the other hand should be more tightly controlled. We should ideally implement georgism to free up the land that the rich own and to increase land use efficiency. After that ownership should look pretty much identical.

Literally any other type of business

You’ve just eliminated perhaps the safest, most attainable method for the average person to achieve passive income.

Owning land for personal use

Other than living on it, why would someone want to own land?

You’ve just eliminated perhaps the safest, most attainable method for the average person to achieve passive income.

If the “safest most attainable way” to get wealth requires others to be homeless or unable to afford a basic necessity then it isn’t not worth it.

And it arguably isn’t the most attainable way, because so many people are being priced out of owning a home because of the current system’s failures.

Other than living on it, why would someone want to own land?

To use it for a business or enjoyment. I’m not sure where you are going with this.

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Landlords should have to pay income tax on their rental properties regardless of whether they're rented out or not.(gothamist.com)

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