Tax the land- to solve America’s housing crisis

 Tax the land- to solve America’s housing crisis

"America’s housing crisis is about the nation’s perennial failure to build enough homes. As of last year, Freddie Mac estimated that the country needs an additional 3.8 million homes to meet demand" https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22951092/land-tax-housing-crisis

My response:

There can be progressive taxation built in, based on the property annual rental value, on overall land owners, so for leaseholds of 99yrs or less, the leasehold property owners pay 66% of property tax portion with landowners topping up to 100% to pay to government tax collectors.

So it's like first USD5000 in taxable value is zero rated, next USD5000 tier at 1%, next USD5000 at 2% until it hits a max of say 80% when the property value is at the highest, i.e. approx $400,000 annual rental value and above.

So roughly, the residential property tax of a piece of land, upon which equivalent residents upon which could be built up,  costing estimate $50k p.a. to rent will be approx $2500 p.a., worth $100k annual rental attracts a tax of approx $10k property tax, worth $400K annual rental will have to pay $160K in property tax, worth $2M annual value (annually to rent) will pay property tax of $160k + $1.6M*80%=$1.44M in annual property tax.

Other forms of land will be taxed at different rates based on permitted use zone classifications, e.g. commercial, farm, mining, industrial  etc etc with a possible discount if the land is vacant, subject to the shortage in supply of houses society needs, so as to optimise the use of land and prevent hording or freeloading by hoarders of land.

Ref:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22951092/land-tax-housing-crisis