patrick.net

Reality says

In case it is not obvious, a typical builder build different houses in different towns. The $700k house and the $200k house are most likely very different, despite being built by the same home builder. Around where I live, even the $1.5mil house and the $800k houses built by the same builder in two towns 40 miles away from each other are very different.

On top of that, lots in the same town have different values, even if identical in size. There is a reason why typical lenders only accept house sales located within a mile as "comparable sals."

Huh? It was hard to make sense of whatever point you are trying to make, while speaking with that chinese finger trap stuck to your tongue.

Let me decomplexify the questtion for you.

Identical house, identical lot, sells for 500k more in SF then it does in lancaster. Why?

errc says

Identical house, identical lot, sells for 500k more in SF then it does in lancaster. Why?

You have to show us Beezer is actually building two identical houses at the two locations like you claim. My point was simply that you are making sh*t up.

Beezer is not so clueless as to build identical houses and sell one at $700k in one place, and $200k in another location. There is opportunity cost to Beezer's employees and equipment.

Reality says

BTW, I'm a man too, and I date women. I also understand the less basket cases out there the better, for women and men who like them.

So I understand you prefer the same women being raped twice. How do you choose that woman?

Reality says

If you get paid for cooking for your neighbor as a form of barter, of course you are liable to income tax. The key is BEING PAID (and having a profit)! The payment doesn't have to be money; you are liable to income tax so long as it is quid pro quo. Cooking for oneself however does not at all constitute income liable to taxation, as there is no income. Nor does informal backyard BBQ's where nobody is earning a profit.

Then I guess you changed your mind. And if I cook for a friend and he later cooks for me as return the favor, we both should be taxed.

And, at the end, with this tax system it's better to produce and consume for yourself = no economy at all

errc says

Identical house, identical lot, sells for 500k more in SF then it does in lancaster. Why?

purely marketing, regardless of cost. something you learn in marketing 101... its the same with many labeled vs generic products like Tennis Shoes.. i mean stick a Nike or some name on it .. but its still some $20 shoes coming from the same factory.

For homes.. it need not be identical looking.. same quantity of material and labor used. A beazer home in SFBA migh be $500K while equal home is less than half elsewhere.

evilmonkeyboy says

So you think that income should only be taxed if you work for it? (I actually think the opposite) So it is fine for a teacher to pay taxes on hard earned wage but if a rich kid is living off of mommy and daddy's investments we should not tax them?

Capital gains is already taxed a a way lower percentage than income tax.

Some republican idiot said during last elections that we need to tax capital gains at a lower rate so investors get compensated for their risk.

The official answer is that lower capital gains incentive investment vs consumption (government knows better what to do with your money than you).

But the reality is that all countries have lower capital tax rate because capital, unlike people, is flexible, and can fly from our country to another one.

Reality says

Do you also happen to hold the old soviet belief that if the bureaucrats had powerful enough computers, they could calculate the prices for everything? at least how much they "ought to" cost? LOL

Or whether or not you are declaring all your income? Oh.. wait, actually IRS has algorithms to help them with that. As long as you have good models, society can be engineered for the benefit of all.

ja says

Some republican idiot said during last elections that we need to tax capital gains at a lower rate so investors get compensated for their risk.

The official answer is that lower capital gains incentive investment vs consumption (government knows better what to do with your money than you).

But the reality is that all countries have lower capital tax rate because capital, unlike people, is flexible, and can fly from our country to another one.

as was the case when many companies actually modernized their workforce with IT equipment.... and there came the PC/Computing/Networking boom... it certainly created a boom in Silicon Valley... we hired everyone in sight and then some.

ja says

BTW, I'm a man too, and I date women. I also understand the less basket cases out there the better, for women and men who like them.

So I understand you prefer the same women being raped twice. How do you choose that woman?

Ever heard of diminishing return? The same women raped twice results in one rape victim. Two women each raped once result in two rape victims.

On top of that, the total sum is never the same: the chips that you advocate implanting into people's necks constitute extra raping, and all the pimply faced fools that need to be hired to staff the extra taxation enforcement would result in even more raping.

ja says

Reality says

If you get paid for cooking for your neighbor as a form of barter, of course you are liable to income tax. The key is BEING PAID (and having a profit)! The payment doesn't have to be money; you are liable to income tax so long as it is quid pro quo. Cooking for oneself however does not at all constitute income liable to taxation, as there is no income. Nor does informal backyard BBQ's where nobody is earning a profit.

Then I guess you changed your mind. And if I cook for a friend and he later cooks for me as return the favor, we both should be taxed.

Where did I change mind? You are free to volunteer payment / donation to the tax authority. Cooking in turn is not even per se quid pro quo; on top of that, there is no profit to be taxed. You are just being silly, but if you prefer making extra donations to the tax authorities, it's your own problem.

And, at the end, with this tax system it's better to produce and consume for yourself = no economy at all

Which tax system? Most tax systems do the blood sucking at points where division of labor takes place, as division of labor results in significant increase in productivity (i.e. profit over the opportunity cost of doing things by oneself).

ja says

Reality says

Do you also happen to hold the old soviet belief that if the bureaucrats had powerful enough computers, they could calculate the prices for everything? at least how much they "ought to" cost? LOL

Or whether or not you are declaring all your income? Oh.. wait, actually IRS has algorithms to help them with that. As long as you have good models, society can be engineered for the benefit of all.

What are you talking about? I take it you didn't know that the soviets believed, according their Marxist Labor Theory of Value, everything had a "fair price" independent of the consumer whims: the bureaucrats with computing power and, yes, models, were the best at setting prices for everything! Yes, they did mean everything, from houses to cars, to shoes to nylon stockings! Fashion and brand be damned.

The result was of course chaos: empty shelves for items that people wanted, overstocks of items that people did not want.

What the Labor Theory of Value failed to recognize is that the market price mechanism is a signal transmission system: transmitting from one participant to another what to produce according to the latest new discovery (which is always localized). A market transaction takes place when two parties disagree on the relative value of the two items being exchanged (one of which can be money); they agree on the exchange but disagree on the relative valuation.

Reality says

Beezer is not so clueless as to build identical houses and sell one at $700k in one place, and $200k in another location. There is opportunity cost to Beezer's employees and equipment.

Of course they would. The difference is the value of the land underneath the house. They have to buy the land before they can build on it.

thomaswong.1986 says

purely marketing, regardless of cost. something you learn in marketing 101... its the same with many labeled vs generic products like Tennis Shoes.. i mean stick a Nike or some name on it .. but its still some $20 shoes coming from the same factory.

For homes.. it need not be identical looking.. same quantity of material and labor used. A beazer home in SFBA migh be $500K while equal home is less than half elsewhere.

Again--the difference is the value of the land. Land is expensive in the BA or Manhattan. Not so expensive in rural America. Therefore the same house might have very different costs depending on where it was built. Same margin for the builder, but different price.

tatupu70 says

Reality says

Beezer is not so clueless as to build identical houses and sell one at $700k in one place, and $200k in another location. There is opportunity cost to Beezer's employees and equipment.

Of course they would. The difference is the value of the land underneath the house. They have to buy the land before they can build on it.

Then why don't you show us the identical houses, one priced at $700k in SFBA, the other at $200k in Lancaster. I call that BS.

Of course there is a difference in the value of land. However quantifying that is not nearly as simple as you might think.

Reality says

Of course there is a difference in the value of land. However quantifying that is not nearly as simple as you might think.

It's not simple. But it's not impossible either.

Reality says

What are you talking about? I take it you didn't know that the soviets believed, according their Marxist Labor Theory of Value, everything had a "fair price" independent of the consumer whims: the bureaucrats with computing power and, yes, models, were the best at setting prices for everything! Yes, they did mean everything, from houses to cars, to shoes to nylon stockings! Fashion and brand be damned.

Using computer and algorithms doesn't mean not taking into account peoples individual value for items. But don't convince me, convince Facebook

Reality says

Where did I change mind? You are free to volunteer payment / donation to the tax authority. Cooking in turn is not even per se quid pro quo; on top of that, there is no profit to be taxed. You are just being silly, but if you prefer making extra donations to the tax authorities, it's your own problem.

You lost me at \

If I cook for a friend and the friend cooks for me.. should it be taxed?
If neighbor A cooks for B, B cooks for C, C cooks for A.. should it b taxed?
Repeat step above (n=3) till n=world population
If any of the above uses an honor system (=memory), should it be taxed?
If any of the above uses a software coin (to help with memory limitations), should it be taxed?
If any of the above uses money, should it be taxed?

tatupu70 says

Reality says

Of course there is a difference in the value of land. However quantifying that is not nearly as simple as you might think.

It's not simple. But it's not impossible either.

It is impossible to impute land value for every lot under an existing building, to any degree that resembles accuracy or fairness.

ja says

Using computer and algorithms doesn't mean not taking into account peoples individual value for items. But don't convince me, convince Facebook

You are thinking of Farmville, not Facebook. LOL. Perhaps in your apprentice control-freak mind produced by the dysfunctional education system, it's possible to run a simulation to account for all future human action.

Such a simulation is doomed to failure. Unlike the sophomoric clockwork universe that you are imagining, the real world operates on uncertainty principle and butterfly effect. Small deviation from your model assumptions can lead to drastically different outcome. New information and new discoveries take place everyday, hence your model accounting for everything there is to know is obsolete the day it is devised.

ja says

If I cook for a friend and the friend cooks for me.. should it be taxed?

Which tax? Restaurant tax? of course not as you are not operating a restaurant open to public. Income tax? You need to show an accounting profit over a certain threshold first before you are liable to income tax.

If neighbor A cooks for B, B cooks for C, C cooks for A.. should it b taxed?

Why? Are they operating as restaurant open to public? Are they generating accounting profit over a certain threashold?

Repeat step above (n=3) till n=world population

If any of the above uses an honor system (=memory), should it be taxed?

Honor system is not taxable. Quid Pro Quo and accounting profit over a certain threshold makes one liable to income tax.

If any of the above uses a software coin (to help with memory limitations), should it be taxed?

They may get busted for using alternative currency, but that's a different issue.

People playing a game of Monopoly would not be taxed according to their winnings in MonopolyMoney either; if there is gambling going on with Mnopoly Money convertible to Federal Reserve Notes, then yes the winnings after conversion are liable to income tax.

If any of the above uses money, should it be taxed?

Money changing hands and resulting in accounting profit, that would make them liable to taxation. However, a group of roommates or fraternity/sorority members pooling their grocery bills together and take turns cooking would certainly not result in income tax . . . unless they hire a cook who is paid for doing the job.

Reality says

It is impossible to impute land value for every lot under an existing building, to any degree that resembles accuracy or fairness.

You have a very narrow view of what's possible then.

Which tax? Restaurant tax? of course not as you are not operating a restaurant open to public. Income tax? You need to show an accounting profit over a certain threshold first before you are liable to income tax.

If neighbor A cooks for B, B cooks for C, C cooks for A.. should it b taxed?

Why? Are they operating as restaurant open to public? Are they generating accounting profit over a certain threashold?

So according to you, the difference if generating value and consuming it depends only on wether it's open to the public. A private club doesn't count?

ps. In case I'm not clear, I'm talking about how taxes *should* be, not about how they are.

ja says

So according to you, the difference if generating value and consuming it depends only on wether it's open to the public. A private club doesn't count?

No. Work on your reading comprehension please.

There are potentially two different types of taxes involved, as you did not make clear which tax you were addressing:

1. Restaurant tax. It's a form of sales tax collected by localities. In order to serve cooked food to the general public, most localities require license and restaurant tax. So a private gathering, even if taking place regularly, doesn't subject one to this particular form of tax, as the food service is not open to public.

2. Income tax. That is both federal and state. For this tax to apply, you have to have accounting profit. Deriving personal pleasure from doing something is not accounting profit; nor is pooling of resources for shared consumption, so long as no body is deriving accounting profit.

ja says

ps. In case I'm not clear, I'm talking about how taxes *should* be, not about how they are.

Is that the catch-call expression for pulling sh*t out of your ass? Should you pay tax for spouting off on the internet? You obviously derive pleasure from spouting off nonsense.

Reality says

2. Income tax. That is both federal and state. For this tax to apply, you have to have accounting profit. Deriving personal pleasure from doing something is not accounting profit; nor is pooling of resources for shared consumption, so long as no body is deriving accounting profit.

You can go to the top of the thread. We have been talking all along about income tax and how it *should* be

My point is that we should tax everything that creates value for a person, whether it's traded in money or by bartering

ja says

You can go to the top of the thread. We have been talking all along about income tax and how it *should* be

My point is that we should tax everything that creates value for a person, whether it's traded in money or by bartering

Then you are no longer talking about income tax, but a new form of taxation: you'd have to pay that tax on the personal gratification that you derive from having written the drivel that you just did; you may have to pay that tax of yours on masturbating next time or even just using your hand to hold your wiener and taking a piss . . . what would be the cost of that if you had been paralyzed and a nurse had to be doing that for you? Well, pay tax according to that cost!

tatupu70 says

Reality says

It is impossible to impute land value for every lot under an existing building, to any degree that resembles accuracy or fairness.

You have a very narrow view of what's possible then.

When it comes to forcibly taking money from people, a narrow view on what's do-able is probably safer than the expansive view that if you put a gun to someone's head, he/she will cough up the money.

Reality says

Then you are no longer talking about income tax, but a new form of taxation:

Yes.. on a new taxation that applies on a re-defined version of income. Real value vs exchanged money.

Real value with yourself.. we can leave that for a second phase

ja says

es.. on a new taxation that applies on a re-defined version of income. Real value vs exchanged money.

Real value with yourself.. we can leave that for a second phase

So how much tax should you pay the next time you take a piss? There is certainly a lot of "real value" in being able to pass water, and it would cost a lot if you couldn't do it yourself due to disability and had to have a medical staff to help you. So how much should you be taxed in your scheme for holding up your own wiener to the urinal and take a pee? LOL.

Reality says

When it comes to forcibly taking money from people, a narrow view on what's do-able is probably safer than the expansive view that if you put a gun to someone's head, he/she will cough up the money.

Nice pile of gibberish there.

tatupu70 says

Reality says

When it comes to forcibly taking money from people, a narrow view on what's do-able is probably safer than the expansive view that if you put a gun to someone's head, he/she will cough up the money.

Nice pile of gibberish there.

Thanks for wasting time with your content-free post.

Reality says

So how much tax should you pay the next time you take a piss? There is certainly a lot of "real value" in being able to pass water, and it would cost a lot if you couldn't do it yourself due to disability and had to have a medical staff to help you. So how much should you be taxed in your scheme for holding up your own wiener to the urinal and take a pee? LOL.

Anything the open market would pay. Of course, you would have to take into discounts things like moving expenses for the medical stuff and the cost of the yuk factor (that most likely you don't have for holding your own thing, what makes it a non open market since there is a unique seller-buyer match - yourself with yourself -)

But for big items whose cost is easily verifiable in an open market, I still for it. So, let's start with rent imputed income, like the Swiss.

ja says

Yes.. on a new taxation that applies on a re-defined version of income. Real
value vs exchanged money.

Not that it's just wrong to tax people on money saving activities such as brewing your own coffee or making your own lunch/dinner, but additionally, who would quantify the savings or the sa called "version of income"? Who would determine the ahem benchmark? If you are making stir fry chicken at home, does the benchmark become chinese restaurant or elephant bar? And who the heck is gonna be actually making these determinations? And lastly, I am gonna call out the swiss and call them corrupt for the so called "imputed rent!"

ja says

So, let's start with rent imputed income, like the Swiss.

That would be pure corruption. You would force homeowners to pay rent and they would still have a mortrgage payment. No rationale, no reason and no justice.

dublin hillz says

No rationale, no reason and no justice.

justice = no subsidize (= different taxation) either using your property or your's landlords
Rationale = reason = with no subsidies, open market allocates resources better than planed government

tatupu70 says

Reality says

When it comes to forcibly taking money from people, a narrow view on what's do-able is probably safer than the expansive view that if you put a gun to someone's head, he/she will cough up the money.

Nice pile of gibberish there.

So you think forcing people to cough up tax money as they see fit under the threat of jail if you don't pay is not akin to sticking a gun to your head?

mell says

So you think forcing people to cough up tax money as they see fit under the threat of jail if you don't pay is not akin to sticking a gun to your head?

You are correct. I think it's a ridiculous analogy that has no useful purpose in intelligent conversation.

ja says

dublin hillz says

No rationale, no reason and no justice.

justice = no subsidize (= different taxation) either using your property or your's landlords
Rationale = reason = with no subsidies, open market allocates resources better than planed government

I don't see how it's fair to have people pay tax on "imputed rent" while they are paying off a mortgage. Please elucidate.

ja says

Anything the open market would pay. Of course, you would have to take into discounts things like moving expenses for the medical stuff and the cost of the yuk factor (that most likely you don't have for holding your own thing, what makes it a non open market since there is a unique seller-buyer match - yourself with yourself -)

The same "unique match" would also apply to cooking for myself and "renting" to myself. If I had the requisite skills and good practice for running a restaurant, I wouldn't be wasting time cooking for myself only. Both running a restaurant and renting residential properties involve a lot of overhead, much more than "moving expenses for the medical staff" (did you mean commute expense?)

But for big items whose cost is easily verifiable in an open market, I still for it. So, let's start with rent imputed income, like the Swiss.

Verifiable in what sense? The rent paid by strangers covers myriads of services and overhead precisely because the two parties are strangers to each other. Do you think renting to oneself would entail lease contract? deposit segregation? insurance against law suits by oneself? income and job verification? interviewing oneself? etc. etc..

As for the Swiss citation, I'm afraid you are missing a lot of the details. Instead of being "fair" as you claim, it seems to me such a tax system is designed to limit home ownership and benefit a few big landlords with sophisticated accountants and tax lawyers. The average homeowner would not go through the trouble of accounting for all the expenses and amortization (most American homeowners don't even itemize to take advantage of mortgage interest deduction) to offset such an "imputed income," whereas a big landlord with a team of accountants and tax lawyers would make sure the actual taxable income from rent is minimized.

ja says

justice = no subsidize (= different taxation) either using your property or your's landlords

What subsidy? Home ownership comes with all sorts of expenses. If the homeowner is forced to "rent" to oneself for tax accounting, then he would be able to deduct interest payment, amortization and repairs/improvements, as well as all the other operating expenses, such as insurance and utilities. Do you really believe there's much tax revenue to be generated on this scheme? What is granny's 1960's decoratiion apartment worth in "open market" anyway? Do we really want bureaucrats to tell granny she can't live there anymore because the bureaucrats think the house' rental value is higher?

Rationale = reason = with no subsidies, open market allocates resources better than planed government

Your proposal would entail vastly increased central planning/valuation by the government.

Reality says

What subsidy? Home ownership comes with all sorts of expenses. If the homeowner is forced to "rent" to oneself for tax accounting, then he would be able to deduct interest payment, amortization and repairs/improvements, as well as all the other operating expenses, such as insurance and utilities. Do you really believe there's much tax revenue to be generated on this scheme? What is granny's 1960's decoratiion apartment worth in "open market" anyway? Do we really want bureaucrats to tell granny she can't live there anymore because the bureaucrats think the house' rental value is higher?

So we should subsidize all industries that have expensive costs? Great, let's encourage those least productive

Last time I checked, around 30% of income is spent on living and rental is a good chunk. But if you have accurate data, please send us those papers.

I can use the average rental-to-value in the area, and use as value a the house appraisal.

Rationale = reason = with no subsidies, open market allocates resources better than planed government

Your proposal would entail vastly increased central planning/valuation by the government.

Just like it happens in other big Comunist countries of the world, like Switzerland.

Wait, we already appraise all our homes. We must be communist then.