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384 points toomuchtodo | 8 comments | 31 Oct 25 17:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.967s | source | bottom
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Humorist2290 ◴[31 Oct 25 23:50 UTC] No.45777973[source]▶

  But if you want to outlaw this harmful activity [licensed gambling], you have to find a way to replace 6.4% of Maryland’s budget, which is slightly less than the entire amount the state brings in from corporate taxes.
A fraction of the proceeds of losing bets from a fraction of Maryland's citizens contributes almost the same to state services -- EMS, education, road maintenance, etc -- than the total corporate taxes levied on all businesses.

Do I misunderstand, or is this just actually incredible?

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mattmaroon ◴[01 Nov 25 05:25 UTC] No.45779445[source]▶
No to both. You probably understand it but it’s not that amazing. States don’t tax corporations much (it’s often fairly easy to move your company to the next state over if taxes are lower) the federal government does. They tax things like sales, homes, gambling and other vices, etc.
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1. kiba ◴[01 Nov 25 11:41 UTC] No.45780899[source]▶
Good idea to impose piguouvian taxes, not a good idea to impose sale taxes as that's regressive.

Property tax's a mixed bag since it taxes both land and building when ideally you only want to tax land.

States that impose income taxes are choosing not to imposes taxes elsewhere like land, which is the ideal tax. Income taxes have negative consequences since you're taxing economic activity.

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2. ◴[01 Nov 25 12:26 UTC] No.45781117[source]▶
3. idiotsecant ◴[01 Nov 25 15:59 UTC] No.45782684[source]▶
Why shouldn't we tax the buildings? It seems like there's lots of real estate out there with relatively moderate land value but astronomical building value.
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4. nradov ◴[01 Nov 25 16:23 UTC] No.45782918[source]▶
Really? Where are those properties?
5. immibis ◴[01 Nov 25 16:26 UTC] No.45782950[source]▶
You can, but it's a tax on real wealth, which incentivizes a reduction in real wealth. More concretely it incentivizes fewer buildings because people want to pay less tax. If you want fewer buildings then fine.

The amount of land is fixed. Taxation on land does not decrease land, but rather incentivizes efficient land use and decreasing land values (which improves efficiency of land use).

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6. Saline9515 ◴[01 Nov 25 17:51 UTC] No.45783705{3}[source]▶
Most of the value of urban land comes from the public infrastructure and economic life around it, not from the promoter's actions which are very common. Besides a tax of land incentivizes usage (so wealth creation), rather than thesaurization.
7. ◴[01 Nov 25 19:04 UTC] No.45784361[source]▶
8. 01HNNWZ0MV43FF ◴[01 Nov 25 19:33 UTC] No.45784594[source]▶
Taxing the buildings incentivizes urban sprawl and blight. People with money to park will park it in empty lots, waiting for the land to increase in value instead of paying the extra property tax to develop it themselves.

The result is a downtown with empty lots, abandoned buildings, and short buildings, right next to skyscrapers making much better use of their footprint and surrounding infrastructure

When a pedestrian has to walk one block further because they're walking past an empty building or empty lot that a rich person has dibs on, it produces negative value for the city