If there is any key ingredient to revitalizing a community, that ingredient is the elimination of the taxation of houses and other buildings, instead collecting the full potential annual rental value of locations. What does this do? First, it rewards the care and maintenance of buildings, which are depreciating assets that require continuous expenditure on maintenance and every ten years or so huge expenditures on systems replacement and upgrading. Taxing buildings is counter-productive and, in the long run, a destructive practice. If there was any logic in taxing buildings, then local governments and school districts ought to tax all forms of depreciating assets (e.g., automobiles, computers, televisions, telephones, refrigerators, lawn mowers, etc. etc. etc.). What about taxing locations at a location's potential rental value? The economic literature if filled with arguments favoring this means of raising revenue to pay for public goods and services. The rental value of a location exists because of the quality of public goods and services brought to the location, independent of what the owner does or does not do to improve the site with a building. Taxing location rent gives the owner of the location a strong financial incentive to improve the location to its highest, best use. Failure to collect the potential rent has in most communities made holding land idle a profitable form of speculation. When the annual tax on land is low, owners can hold land vacant for years or decades. Vacant land provides no housing for anyone or a business location or other constructive use. If there are many vacant lots in a neighborhood or many vacant and deteriorating buildings, the main reason is the conventional property tax. Community activists who want to see their communities thrive should find out more about the above proposed change in how their local government raises revenue. There are about twenty towns, boroughs and school districts in Pennsylvania that have moved in this direction. Find out more by visiting the website of the Princeton-based Robert Schalkenbach Foundation -- schalkenbach.org/ Edward J. Dodson, Director School of Cooperative Individualism www.cooperative-individualism.org
In addition to gratitude which is so important we can also do a kind act of service in honor of Martin Luther King Day. Ideas would be to donate to a food bank, a shelter or to a cause that helps others in times of need. Gratitude and Service helps to embody positivity. Thank you Karen and Jay.
Thank you, Jay. We need to choose to be positive. And it is a choice. Our eventual results, circumstances and achievements begin with a choice that sets the tone and then the vector for our lives. I appreciate your unfailing leadership.
Thank you Jay for "exposing" this revolting "expose" from the current Chinese Gov't! Where does the current "virus" pandemic reveal Chinese Gov't coverup?
