for SF Mayor
Because the price you pay for the place you live reflects all the things you like about it--its ambiance, the area businesses, the paved streets, the police and fire protection, the public education, even the public services such as general assistance and health care--when you pay the landlord or the bank (mortgage and interest for the land), you've paid for public services.
Building values belong to the landlord, but land values belong to community!
What's screwy is that the landlord or the bank gets most of this community-generated value. To pay for the public infrastructure things that contribute to land value, taxes are placed on work and business. That's wrong. Land values should pay for government because the value of government (if it has any value) is embedded in land value.
The relevance to undocumented immigrants is this: the only reason that today citizens have to pay taxes on their earned income for services which the undocumented use is that almost all the value of land is left with the mere land owner. The undocumented do pay land prices, but the commercial landowner keeps most of this community-generated value.
Leon Phat will set things right by implementing a Community Benefit District Land Rent Tax (CBDLRT) of 50% of the potential land rent of every parcel in San Francisco.
This tax, combined with the elimination of business taxes and the local sales tax in the city will result in businesses moving to San Francisco. And neighboring county folk will want to buy where the sales tax is lower).
This CBDLRT won't raise the price of rent, it simply reduces the amount of land rent the land owner gets to keep. As business earnings go up (because Phat will eliminate business taxes and fees and revoke the local sales tax), and income from merely owning land goes down, land owners will more fully use their land.
Good tax policy pays for public services for all while reducing taxes on business!
Land values are community
Copyright 2010 Leion Phat for SF Supervisor. All rights reserved.