land tax Archives - the patient investor

May 19, 2014

The Inequality Puzzle | Lawrence H. Summers

Larry Summers exposes the flaw in Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty argues that inequality is rising because the rate of return on capital is higher than the economy’s growth rate.

Does not the rising share of profits in national income in most industrial countries over the last several decades prove out Piketty’s argument? Only if one assumes that the only factors at work are the ones he emphasizes. Rather than attributing the rising share of profits to the inexorable process of wealth accumulation, most economists would attribute both it and rising inequality to the working out of various forces associated with globalization and technological change. For example, mechanization of what was previously manual work quite obviously will raise the share of income that comes in the form of profits. So does the greater ability to draw on low-cost foreign labor.

Correlation does not imply causation. The fact that two events occur together does not prove that one has caused the other.

Summers also addresses whether returns on capital are largely reinvested:

A brief look at the Forbes 400 list also provides only limited support for Piketty’s ideas that fortunes are patiently accumulated through reinvestment. When Forbes compared its list of the wealthiest Americans in 1982 and 2012, it found that less than one tenth of the 1982 list was still on the list in 2012, despite the fact that a significant majority of members of the 1982 list would have qualified for the 2012 list if they had accumulated wealth at a real rate of even 4 percent a year. They did not, given pressures to spend, donate, or misinvest their wealth. In a similar vein, the data also indicate, contra Piketty, that the share of the Forbes 400 who inherited their wealth is in sharp decline.

That income inequality is rising is undisputed, but the causes are not as simple as Piketty assumes. His proposal of a progressive tax on wealth is unlikely to see the light of day: the history of inheritance taxes is an indication of their ineffectiveness. But a shift away from income taxes towards land taxes and other flat rate, indirect taxes would provide a significant boost to the economy as illustrated by the following chart from the Henry Review.

Marginal welfare loss from a small increase in selected Australian taxes

Marginal welfare loss is the loss in consumer welfare per dollar of revenue raised for a small increase in each tax (the extent of compensation required to restore consumer satisfaction reflects the distorting effect of the tax on the economy). A decrease in the level of tax, on the other hand, would be likely to produce a similar-sized benefit. So a trade off between taxes at the top of the scale and those at the bottom would be expected to deliver a substantial net benefit.

May 19, 2014

The Inequality Puzzle | Lawrence H. Summers

Does not the rising share of profits in national income in most industrial countries over the last several decades prove out Piketty’s argument? Only if one assumes that the only factors at work are the ones he emphasizes. Rather than attributing the rising share of profits to the inexorable process of wealth accumulation, most economists would attribute both it and rising inequality to the working out of various forces associated with globalization and technological change. For example, mechanization of what was previously manual work quite obviously will raise the share of income that comes in the form of profits. So does the greater ability to draw on low-cost foreign labor.

Correlation does not imply causation. The fact that two events occur together does not prove that one has caused the other.

Summers also addresses whether returns on capital are largely reinvested:

A brief look at the Forbes 400 list also provides only limited support for Piketty’s ideas that fortunes are patiently accumulated through reinvestment. When Forbes compared its list of the wealthiest Americans in 1982 and 2012, it found that less than one tenth of the 1982 list was still on the list in 2012, despite the fact that a significant majority of members of the 1982 list would have qualified for the 2012 list if they had accumulated wealth at a real rate of even 4 percent a year. They did not, given pressures to spend, donate, or misinvest their wealth. In a similar vein, the data also indicate, contra Piketty, that the share of the Forbes 400 who inherited their wealth is in sharp decline.

Marginal welfare loss from a small increase in selected Australian taxes

April 30, 2014

No Alan, more income tax is not the answer | MacroBusiness

Leith van Onselen comments on Alan Kohler’s support for a proposed debt levy:

The first best solution is to shift Australia’s tax base away from productive enterprise (both individuals and companies) towards more efficient sources, such as land, resources and consumption. According to the Henry Tax Review, the marginal excess burden (i.e. the loss in consumer welfare relative to the net gain in government revenue) from the GST is just 8%, whereas it is near zero for taxes on land and resources. They also compare very favourably against the two biggest current sources of tax revenue – personal income tax (24% marginal excess burden) and company taxes (40% marginal excess burden) – offering the nation large productivity pay-offs from fundamental tax reform.

March 3, 2014

Deflating Australia’s land bubble

ScreenHunter_18 Jul. 05 10.22

Great post by Leith van Onselen
Reproduced with kind permission from Macrobusiness.com.au.

Prosper Australia has provided a submission to the Senate Inquiry into Housing Affordability, which is well worth a look. The submission first provides nine metrics illustrating Australia’s residential property bubble, which include the following:

It took forty years from 1950 to 1990 for housing prices to double, but only fifteen years between 1996 and 2010 to double again. The surge in housing prices is driven by the tremendous growth in household debt, as owner-occupiers and investors take out ever larger mortgages to speculate on housing. The household debt to GDP ratio reached a record high of 98 per cent in 2010, the same year real housing prices peaked. In 2013, the mortgage and personal debt ratios were 86 and 9 per cent, respectively, for a combined household debt ratio of 95 per cent.

As mortgage debt escalated, investors’ net rental losses increased rapidly from 2001 onwards. In that year, net rental income losses were just over $1 billion, rising to $9.7 billion in 2008 as the cash rate peaked at 7.2 per cent. By 2010, when mortgage debt reached its historical peak relative to GDP, investor losses eased to $5.1 billion as the cash rate fell to a then historic low of 3 per cent in 2009 following the global financial crisis (GFC). The latest data shows income losses rose to $8.2 billion in 2011, the second largest absolute loss on record…

The housing market meets economist Hyman Minsky’s definition of a Ponzi scheme, as gross rental incomes minus expenses are clearly insufficient to meet principal and interest repayments. As 67 per cent of property investors are negatively-geared as of 2011, investment decisions are predicated upon expected rises in land values, not rents. This strategy will inevitably fail, as the escalation in real housing prices can only be sustained by a continual acceleration or exponential rise in mortgage debt.

The price to income (P/I) ratio, otherwise known as the median multiple, is another measure of residential property valuation…

From the mid-1990s onwards, housing prices outpaced household incomes, and the P/I ratio increased from 4 to 7 nationwide. It is impossible for household incomes to match the rise in housing prices during the boom phase of a property bubble, as wages grow more slowly, usually just above the rate of inflation…

Land is the largest tangible market in Australia… Our housing bubble is actually a residential land bubble, as the total land values to GDP ratio doubled between 1996 and 2010, when it reached a record high of 298 per cent ($4.1 trillion). In real terms, residential land values rose from $895 billion in 1996 to a peak of $3.2 trillion in 2010, a relative increase of 262 per cent. This ratio is closely matched by a similar rise in the value of the residential housing stock. The rise in residential land values, rather than structures, is responsible for almost all of the increase in the value of the housing stock…

Prosper then places the blame for Australia’s expensive housing on convergence of factors, with Australia’s inefficient tax system front-and-centre:

A convergence of factors are responsible: a large cohort of irrational investors gambling on housing prices, a FIRE sector willing and able to facilitate a credit boom, and low property and land taxes attracting speculators to this asset class…

A positive feedback loop has emerged between housing prices and mortgage debt, with rising prices prompting the take-up of more debt in an upwards spiral…

An inefficient taxation system, comprised of low property and land taxes, allows landowners to expropriate ‘geo-rent’ (economic rent derived from land) by capturing the uplift in land values generated by taxpayer-funded infrastructure and rising economic productivity… Government willingness to tax wages and business ahead of land has elevated its privileged status, resulting in larger capital sums being paid by owner-occupiers and investors.

It also advocates land tax reform, which it claims would significantly improve incomes, affordability, and productivity:

Counter-intuitively, reducing wage and business taxation and increasing land tax would not necessarily lower fundamental land prices, given the offsetting boost to disposable wages, profits and hence rents, but it would certainly lower bubble-inflated land prices. Land tax reform – urged on government by every independent tax review in living memory – would firmly correct the price to rent and income ratios. If Australia wishes to escape or ameliorate the profound financial destruction of a bursting land bubble, the solution lies in this equation…

Prosper also slams housing-related tax expenditures, which undermine the integrity of the tax system:

The generous scope of tax expenditures relating to the housing market has served to further increase prices. Tax expenditures are defined as a deviation from the commonly accepted tax structure, whether it is a tax exemption, concession, deduction, preferential rate, allowance, rebate, offset, credit or deferral. Australia has the highest rate of tax expenditures among our OECD peers, at more than 8 per cent of GDP. Tax expenditures are vulnerable to lobbying, and often compromise the fairness and efficiency of the tax system. Lavish tax expenditures for both owner-occupied and investment property has significantly worsened housing affordability because they allow landowners to capture greater amounts of geo-rent and prioritise unearned wealth and income over what is earned. Existing home owners capture the most benefit, ahead of first home buyers, investors and tenants.

These tax expenditures provide a strong incentive to speculate on housing prices, and are reinforced by already low property taxes. Investors perceive rental income as secondary to expected rises in capital prices, while first home buyers over-leverage themselves to enter a bubble-inflated market…

Tax expenditures, combined with the ongoing deregulation of the banking and financial system, has transformed the housing market into a casino. Residential property is commonly viewed as a speculative asset to flip, rather than shelter to raise a family in…

Finally, Prosper provides two recommendations to the Senate Inquiry:

Recommendation 1: Reform Land Value Tax. The ideal tool to moderate land bubbles and properly fund infrastructure already exists in the hands of state and territory governments: state land tax (SLT). Unfortunately, this tax has been so riddled with exemptions and concessional treatments it must be considered dormant…

We suggest the current government introduce a nationwide one per cent federal land tax (FLT) – fully rebatable on SLT paid – to oblige the states and territories to use their taxing powers properly. State governments could adjust their tax rules and keep every dollar the FLT raises, to the benefit of all Australians. The Commonwealth Parliament would be entitled to argue this intervention is for sound economic reasons and dissipate the political fallout. Placing state and territory finances on sound bases would vastly improve the federal system mandated by Australia’s Constitution. Transitional arrangements would need to be considered. Rebating all stamp duty paid against a hypothetical past SLT obligation would address concerns of fairness and equity…

Recommendation 2: Macroprudential Regulation. A range of macro-prudential tools are needed to moderate housing price inflation and subdue credit growth in a pro-cyclical financial system, such as those affecting the loan to value, (LVR), debt servicing (DSR) and debt servicing to income (DSTI) ratios.26 Quantitative restrictions should be placed on the share of new mortgages with moderately high LVRs…

To reduce systemic risk, a large rise in capital and liquidity ratios (buffers) is required to ensure banks can withstand a future economic downturn, bank run or large fall in the value of collateral. Research suggests the probability of a banking crisis can be reduced to a 1 in 100 year event by raising core equity (Tier 1) capital ratios to 11 per cent in isolation or raising core equity to 10 per cent with an addition rise in liquid assets of 12.5 per cent (the rise in liquid assets over total assets). For the Big Four banks, this would represent a rise of around 3 per cent in core equity…

The full submission is available here.

July 7, 2013

It’s Time to Levy the Land | naked capitalism

There are growing calls for increased use of land value taxes to replace income taxes and corporations taxes as a major source of government revenue. Yves Smith points out:

Income and sales taxes add to the price of doing business, and hence reduce their supply and competitiveness. Most economists – even Milton Friedman – recommend that the more efficient tax burden is one that collects economic rent – property rent, fees charged for using the airwaves, monopoly rent, and other income that is basically an access charge. If you tax land rent, for instance, this doesn’t raise the price of housing or office space. The rent-of-location is set by the market place……

I agree with Michael Hudson that our income tax system encourages the use of debt, over-use of which was one of the primary causes of the recent GFC:

Our tax system favors debt rather than equity financing. By encouraging debt it has prompted a tax shift onto the “real” economy’s labor and capital. The resulting interest charge and tax shift mean that we’re not as efficient and low-cost producers as we used to be…..

But I have two concerns:

Introducing new taxes without abolishing the old leaves scope for government to increase tax revenues as a percentage of GDP over time. And few things are more inefficient — and more harmful to growth — than government spending.
Focus on land value taxes alone, while neglecting other rent-producing assets such as patents, copyright ownership, rights to airwaves, and even brand ownership may skew investment towards, and inflate the price of, these lower taxed assets.

March 18, 2013

Australia: Sydney is reaching a liveability crisis

Professor Percy Allan kindly sent me a copy a report, to which he contributed, on living conditions in Sydney — prepared by the Urban Taskforce. Here are some interesting excerpts:

Over the next 20 years Sydney will need at least 600,000 new homes located in infill sites and in greenfield sites on the fringes of the metropolitan area. But Sydney has not built sufficient homes over recent years with its current production only half that of Victoria on a per capita basis. Already the average house cost in Sydney is one of the highest in the world and this is impacting on affordability for many families. The Sydney median house is $100,000 more expensive than the equivalent in Melbourne. The average weekly earnings of a first homebuyer can afford a mortgage of $331,000 while the average house price in Sydney is $563,300. The lack of housing supply has led to an increase in rents by 40% over the last 5 years…….

Conclusion

Local government has aggravated Sydney’s housing crisis by:
• Not rezoning sufficient land for affordable multiple dwellings,
• Not adopting clear consistent plans and regulations to guide permissible development,
• Not ensuring individual development assessments are independent of political and vested interests,
• Not spending enough on capital works thereby creating a large backlog of unsatisfactory community infrastructure,
• Using depreciation provisions and reserves for non-capital purposes,
• Under-borrowing for infrastructure enhancements thereby forcing new homebuyers to contribute disproportionately towards this end,
• Not sharing the cost of greenfield infrastructure with existing communities that inherited free public assets from previous generations, and
• Not sharing or outsourcing activities that would benefit from economies of scale and scope nor focusing on specific place management to better respond to community needs at a street level.

March 15, 2013

What Australia needs is lower land prices

Australia enjoyed a mining boom over the last ten years but now faces a fall-off in capital expenditure on new projects as commodity prices fall. The RBA, eyeing the coming slow-down with some trepidation, is hoping that housing construction recovers to fill the void. So far the housing market has failed to respond to lower interest rates.

Housing Building Approvals

The reason that the housing market has not reacted to lower rates is partly attributable to housing affordability, with household debt in the last 20 years having trebled as a ratio to disposable income.

Housing Debt as % of Disposable Income

The uncertain financial climate has also contributed, with households repaying debt rather than looking for new homes.

Household Saving as % of Disposable Income

Further cuts in interest rates will not help. Encouraging home buyers to enter the market at unsustainably low interest rates would exacerbate the housing bubble and cause further hardship when rates rise. Rather than monetary policy, we need changes at federal, state and local government level to increase the availability of land for housing.

Abolish transfer duties
Abolishing transfer duties on property would encourage home-owners to re-size as their needs change, releasing more housing stock into the market. Abolishing transfer duties would also remove state support for higher property prices. Under a transfer duty, higher prices boost state revenues, encouraging support for property developers who land-bank large tracts of land and restrict their release to maintain high prices.
Replace with a land tax
Replacing transfer duties with a land tax, based on the value of the land, would also discourage land-banking by property developers. Restricted release of land is the primary cause of unaffordable housing in both Australia and the UK.
Overcome zoning issues
Zoning issues at state and regional level may also contribute to the slow release of new land for development.
Reduce infrastructure costs
Costs of new infrastructure development are another reason local government tends to restrict release of new land for housing development. Establishment of municipal utility districts (“MUDs”) within a local government area would help to overcome this. Leith van Onselen describes how MUDs in Texas, ranging in size from 200 to 5000 hectares, charge home-buyers a monthly infrastructure levy rather than requiring up-front payment for establishment of new services — which is then folded into the purchase price. The MUD levy expires when bonds used to finance the services have been amortized, or residents can decide to continue the levy to upgrade public amenities such as parks, swimming pools and other facilities.

Increased availability of land would drive down new house prices and encourage the establishment of new households. This would boost not only housing construction, building materials and general construction — through establishment of roads and services — but the retail sector as well, because every new home needs to be furnished. New jobs in these sectors would lift general consumption and the broader economy, helping Australia to avoid the approaching mining cliff.

March 2, 2013

Something has to be done about income taxes

Years ago I worked in structured finance for an investment bank, creating tax-efficient structures for large corporations. That left me with the lasting impression that income taxes are inefficient — both in terms of equity and collection — and should be levied at low flat rates if they cannot be avoided altogether.

Any tax acts as a disincentive. The impact of flat taxes at low rates is mild. We don’t often think of GST/VAT as deterring consumption. But income tax, with progressive tax rates, acts as a massive disincentive on production. If there was no income tax, we would all be encouraged to work harder. Doctors might not play golf on Wednesdays, but the average worker would also seek more income because they aren’t giving half of it back in taxes. This would give a significant boost to GDP. Interest would also not be taxed, creating an incentive to increase savings.

The problem with all taxes is they tend to increase over time. Flat rate taxes such as GST are the exception because of political fall-out from a rate increase. It is too easy with progressive taxes, like income tax, for politicians to introduce increases by stealth or simply to allow inflation to push taxpayers into higher tax brackets over time. Flat taxes allow politicians less wiggle room as any tax increases are evident to all.

Substituting a combination of land taxes, resource taxes and sales taxes (GST/VAT) for income taxes, or even just reducing income taxes to a low flat rate, would boost both economic growth and savings while making politicians more accountable to their electorate.

March 2, 2013

In support of land taxes

Thanks to Alex Fletcher who submitted this as a comment:

From a purist point of view I believe Geolibertarianism is the moral philosophy that should guide taxation:-

“Geolibertarians are advocates of geoism, which is the position that all natural resources – most importantly land – are common assets to which all individuals have an equal right to access; therefore, individuals must pay rent to the community if they claim land as their private property. Rent need not be paid for the mere use of land, but only for the right to exclude others from that land, and for the protection of one’s title by government. They simultaneously agree with the libertarian position that each individual has an exclusive right to the fruits of his or her labor as their private property, as opposed to this product being owned collectively by society or the community, and that ‘one’s labor, wages, and the products of labor’ should not be taxed.”

In reality though it is about what is practically possible. The Henry review [in Australia] aimed for four bases – personal income, business income, consumption and economic rents of natural resources and land. At present land tax has a much smaller role than the other three.

Any change to increase the proportion of total taxation from LVT can only be achieved slowly and with much opposition. The ACT proposal to change existing property taxes and stamp duty to an annual LVT is the best start one can hope for. The plan is such that if a landowner really wants to keep stamp duty instead of an annual fee they can virtually do so. There was an article in The Drum about it.

I believe GST is more efficient than income tax and in that context may be better. However if, as geonomics asserts, the main contributor to unemployment is that land is priced out of reach, increasing the GST and broadening the base without a broad-based LVT as well, would not abolish unemployment and so would increase hardship for the very poor.