🚀 go-pugleaf

"robert j. kolker" <nowhere@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:2tjbu9F1qe31fU3@uni-berlin.de...
>
>
> royls@telus.net wrote:
>
> >
> > You tax the value the property would have if the vertical condominium
> > were not there.
>
> If there were a law of nature that determined economic values, you might
> have a point. But no such law exists. Values are the result of choices
> and trade offs and cannot be determined a priori.

Values are proven by trade.   This is true.  But values are anticipated by set
prices on everything from a gallon of milk in the store to laborer's wages to
monthly rent on an office suite.   Besides real estate appraisers and tax assessors,
millions of private sector analysts labor to anticipate value in the market.  To say
that value cannot be revealed but by actual exchange is a statement true on its face
but misleading because it  ignores the science of market forecast that makes a
modern industrial economy possible.

In the specific case of the accuracy of land value estimation a few comments are in
order.   Unlike products, locations are fixed in supply.  This means that unlike
products, land values are not subject to great fluctuations in value caused by
fluctuations in supply.    Also, LVT itself has an effect on the land market.
Because LVT removes price appreciation it restores land to a rent-bid market.   This
also has a stabilizing effect.   As land values change, the changes are easily
detected through selling price (if land value taxes are accurate, land has a
exchange price of zero.  A price of greater than or less than zero indicates
inaccurate assessment), and sublet data.    Assessments are based not on projected
values, nor solely on the comparative appraisal method now in use, but on community
wide land rent maps that are updated by market exchange data.

MM