Start Date
11-12-2015 1:00 PM
End Date
11-12-2015 1:45 PM
Description
The property tax is always controversial, but the current period of rapid economic change demonstrates some of its unappreciated benefits. The widespread attention to the publication of Thomas Piketty’s "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" focused on the growth of economic inequality in the United States and other Western countries. Although the rise in income and wealth inequality is widely recognized, the appropriate policy responses are subject to intense political debate. Part of this debate concerns the appropriate role for wealth taxes, which has important implications for the property tax. The property tax is the target of much opposition precisely because it functions as an asset tax, and so it serves as an excellent test for the practical issues that will confront any wealth tax of the type that Piketty recommends. Some critics have argued that Piketty’s work pays insufficient attention to the growing share of capital being held in the form of housing and land. This development, highlighted by soaring housing prices in New York, London, Shanghai and other locations, suggests that increased reliance on a value-based property tax, or a land tax, could play a potentially important role in combatting economic inequality.
Recommended Citation
Youngman, Joanne Esq., "Defending the property tax in a time of economic change: The inequality debate" (2015). IAAO Annual Legal Seminar. 12.
https://researchexchange.iaao.org/legal/legal15/sessions/12
Defending the property tax in a time of economic change: The inequality debate
The property tax is always controversial, but the current period of rapid economic change demonstrates some of its unappreciated benefits. The widespread attention to the publication of Thomas Piketty’s "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" focused on the growth of economic inequality in the United States and other Western countries. Although the rise in income and wealth inequality is widely recognized, the appropriate policy responses are subject to intense political debate. Part of this debate concerns the appropriate role for wealth taxes, which has important implications for the property tax. The property tax is the target of much opposition precisely because it functions as an asset tax, and so it serves as an excellent test for the practical issues that will confront any wealth tax of the type that Piketty recommends. Some critics have argued that Piketty’s work pays insufficient attention to the growing share of capital being held in the form of housing and land. This development, highlighted by soaring housing prices in New York, London, Shanghai and other locations, suggests that increased reliance on a value-based property tax, or a land tax, could play a potentially important role in combatting economic inequality.