>When the supply of housing remains constant and the demand of housing remains constant then prices remain constant. LVT changes none of these variables directly.

Doesn't LVT increase the cost of providing the already existing housing and wouldn't that decrease the supply of housing? This would apply one time when the LVT comes into effect.

>Doesn't LVT increase the cost of providing the already existing housing

No, it just shifts where the land rents go.

Depending on how it was implemented it could lead to a wave of property developers going spectacularly bankrupt and a lot of mortgages secured on the value of land would be defaulted on. Stock market would likely take a hit/tank.

No, LVT adds no cost to providing housing. All land is taxed, so a landowner has to pay the same tax whether the land is empty, or has a single floor house, or a 30 story apartment.

If anything, it encourages building more, so that the income from the rent can be used to the pay the LVT.

>No, LVT adds no cost to providing housing.

I'm not talking about long-term, but the initial effect of LVT coming into effect. If the landlord has to pay more then that's an increase in cost. Landlord income was likely at equilibrium before LVT. Those that could afford to lower prices to outcompete others probably already did so. As a result I don't see how we can expect landlords to eat the cost instead of passing it on.

>If anything, it encourages building more, so that the income from the rent can be used to the pay the LVT.

Sure, but this also requires housing to be as profitable (or more) as other uses of the land. It might make sense to turn that housing into something else.

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing about what it would be like in the long-term. I'm talking about the transition between going from not having LVT to having LVT. It's not at all clear to me that this wouldn't disrupt housing.

> I'm not talking about long-term, but the initial effect of LVT coming into effect. If the landlord has to pay more then that's an increase in cost.

Right, but how does that lead to less housing? It's not like the landlord would stop renting the apartment and just hold it empty right after an LVT is implemented, since they would to pay the LVT either way. Most likely, the landlord would sell the building and land to someone else, who would then develop it to something that would provide enough income to cover the LVT obligations (say, a taller apartment).

Your claim also assumes that the LVT will be greater than the current property tax obligations. I don't think that's a given. The LVT for buildings that are using land efficiently probably would be lower, since the would no longer have to pay tax on the building (which is higher for a multi-unit building compared to a SFH).

As a side note, I am in favour of the government providing a subsidy to current landowners when a LVT is implemented, to compensate them from the lost land value (essentially "buying them out"), but I don't think that would be economically necessary.

> It might make sense to turn that housing into something else.

Yes, this is a possibility. But if that happens, then it's a sign that the demand for new housing is a low, so it makes sense to not build new housing (or convert existing housing). In regions where there's a housing shortage, a developer would be able to make a large profit building new housing, and thus would do so.

A housing shortage doesn't necessarily mean that new housing would be more profitable than something commercial. I do agree that this would encourage landowners to improve their buildings more in theory. I'm from a country that has a land value tax and frankly it just doesn't matter much. Maybe I just haven't seen the distorting effects that property taxes have.

>Those that could afford to lower prices to outcompete others probably already did so.

Why on earth would you assume that a landlord charging market rent would lower their prices when there's nothing forcing them to?

>As a result I don't see how we can expect landlords to eat the cost instead of passing it on.

Heavily leveraged landlords would be able to pass the costs on in the form of defaulting on mortgages. Non-leveraged landlords being forced to eat the costs would likely be very unhappy about being forced to "eat the costs" (lose their stream of unearned income), but they would have few other options. Violence would be a significant possibility.

> They would no more be able to make up their losses through rent increases than I could make up the loss of being charged extra for a loaf of bread at the supermarket by unilaterally raising my wages. One does not drive the other.

Do you have research, or an evidence base, for this?

> [...] it certainly was being run on behalf of landlords.

It certainly was not.

>Do you have research, or an evidence base, for this?

Economics by Paul Samuelson: https://archive.org/details/economics00paul/page/603

Do you have research that indicates the opposite is likely to be true? I'd be really interested in seeing what that is based upon.

>It certainly was not.

It's not unusual among for economists to do this subconsciously due to the incentive structure of the profession.

Try here (starting on page 39). Whether it answers your question - I have no idea. It was part of the research commissioned by the Inquiry to inform its work. The Inquiry's terms or reference were to review options for local government funding streams; LVT was one option among many.

[Links to PDF] https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/en/archive/20070411120...

It might have not been directly funded by landlords but it might have been approved for publishing with the same motives as opposed to the other studies which came to opposite conclusions.

It was an Inquiry into the role, functions and funding of Local Government in England. Landlords no doubt had a stake in the Inquiry's conclusions but then so did everybody else living and working in England at the time (not least central, and local, governments).