OK, so because Victorian taxi licence holders are going to have to pay higher rents for the government-granted privilege of holding a licence, the value of taxi licences is going to diminish.
That makes sense: there’s less public taxi rent going to be capitalised by private individuals.
And, of course, seeing your potential capital gains disappearing before your eyes makes you exceedingly angry as a licence holder. You’re even likely to get in the faces of Victorian politicians on the steps of Parliament House.
None of us like losing privileges we didn’t really earn, but don’t taxi licence holders owe a market rent for this restricted product – a taxi licence?
Had the market rents for licences been captured by the State government in the first instance, licences would never have been transferring for the sort of astronomic figures they reached. A business would not have been created out of a private monopoly in public taxi rents.
But things got out of hand: bad practices had been allowed to develop, and get worse.
Very much like the nose-bleed heights to which our land prices have been allowed to ascend.
Maybe it’s beyond time the government began to capture our land rents, too, if young people are ever going to be able to afford a home?
It’s action that does need to be taken …. even if it’s going to make some of us very angry .
Well said, Magnus. Only the uneducated and those of an obstinately blind mindset could disagree with you. Mind you, the latter are the powerbrokers – the 0.1% – and they have their witless band of followers.
Troll says what?
Let’s make it clear. When can either:
A) Maintain the current system of taxation and loose FIRE sector arrangements which will encourage ongoing boom-bust property cycles, destroying a lot of wealth during the process.
Further, there is a significant loss to GDP of bank crises that often accompany bursting property bubbles. Steep land values benefit no-one except existing speculators, owners and bankster scum.
Further, it encourages a culture of haves and have-nots and diverts unnecessary finance into unproductive dwellings and places massive debt burdens and stress on those trying to buy a basic home.
OR
B) We can implement a comprehensive land value tax, scrap stamp duties, scrap owner-occupier and speculator concessions and exemptions for capital gains, and drive land values down to their fundamental value based upon future annual income (rental) stream. This also provides significant scope to do away with a range of other inefficient taxes as per the Henry Review.
This means the current gamblers (primarily baby boomers) will be burnt as land values tend to deflate from their ridiculously high levels now, and they will (GASP) be required to actually productively invest/save for their retirement instead of bankrupting Gen X-Y to “get a foot on the debt serf ladder.”
Long term, less cash is drawn by the FIRE sector leeches, the cost of an input common to all production (land) falls – providing an immediate productivity boost, the FIRE sector is cut down to size by gross value add to GDP (they are far too large), and people have more discretionary income to spend in the real economy. Further, once the incentive for gambling (capital gains) are muted by a LVT, the threat of large and damaging boom-bust cycles are largely removed.
So Gonzo, unless you are a self-interested dimwit like yourself, the answer to Australia’s woes in the long term (on the basis that this morbidly obese bubble is gonna blow one way or the other), is to bring on the LVT, get the pain over with, and encourage investment in something of worth that will add to national income over the long-term i.e. not dead bricks and mortar.
Freeing future generations from this ridiculous debt pilgrimage they are meant to undertake for a simple dwelling is key. There is no need for government interventions like NG, grants and the like if homes were simply affordable, which they are demonstrably not.
Magnus, again you type away with your rubbish showing your foolishness.
The specs are FORCED to act because they cannot SAVE and invest in a GOVERNMENT run economy……wake up pal the 2008 clean up was blocked by the gov and corporations thru bail outs, in capitalism they go BANKRUPT.
You are obv either stupid, foolish or defending the demise of yourself, the irony is funny.
Gonzo you are a real numpty.
I note you were “defending property owner’s rights” only a few articles ago in response to suggestions that land tax reform would help to deflate prices to their fundamental value.
Thus, you are willing to defend egregious private expropriation of unearned land rent during a credit bubble, egged on by idiotic government policy and taxation arrangements – locking out would be owner-occupiers during the process.
There are a hell of a lot of people who don’t want basic homes to be finacialized as an asset to be traded but – heaven forbid – be a reasonably priced dwelling in which to raise a family.
It’s loafers, speculators, bottom dwellers and numb-nuts like yourself gonzo that are driving the economy into ruin.
The mindless collective cannot get rich by flipping over-priced shit-boxes to each other forever. It is not sustainable, nor has it ever been throughout recorded history of asset bubbles.
Hear, hear! Gonzo.
What utter codswallop you’ve written Brian. Not up to your usual standard!
Get rid of the government given means to rort the people, all ow the free market to work….
The gov created the high “land” values, i sure the RBA knows how to make them more “affordable”.
Brian Kav = marxist socialist expert.
just abolish the license and let the free market do its work, cheaper fares and more cometition.
Brian yu are delusional mate, yu must be a politician.