Re:How Much Land Does a Man Need? (1886)
by nybble41 on Monday January 06, 2020 @03:30PM
(#21972956)
How does that work if there are already improvements on the land? You'd either have to auction the land with the improvements—in which the auction price won't indicate how much the land would have fetched on its own—or else stipulate that any improvements must be demolished prior to the auction, which would be massively wasteful.
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It's not a trivial problem, but solvable. There are other solutions than the two you mentioned.
Re:How Much Land Does a Man Need? (1886)
by nybble41 on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @05:57PM
(#21996676)
There are other options, sure. The tax assessors could simply guess, or outright dictate whatever "unimproved value" they choose (i.e. the highest tax they think they can get away with). If the the point is to establish the "unimproved" value of the land through an auction, however, you can't do that when the land and its improvements are inseparable. These are not two distinct economic goods with independent values. The improved land is one good, with one combined value.