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Re:Detroit wants to be the first big American city to tax la... by robertlagrant on Tuesday October 17, 2023 @09:00AM (#37914257)
As I understand it, property tax is simple when there's been a recent sale. The complexity comes from a similar issue to land value: no recent sale. In this case it's worse because valuing the land outside of what it's used for is a mess.
Re:Detroit wants to be the first big American city to tax la... by mactrey on Tuesday October 17, 2023 @02:48PM (#37919741)
But this problem already exists. Many people live in homes for 30+ years and pay property tax on the land + improvement (physical home) value. Why would it be so much harder to hypothetically value the land without a recent sale (required for a LVT) than to hypothetically value the land + improvements without a recent sale (required for property taxes which currently exist in almost every city in America)?
Re:Detroit wants to be the first big American city to tax la... by kevincox on Wednesday October 18, 2023 @12:10AM (#37924769)
Because their neighbours have sold their houses recently. So using similar sales as a baseline and then factoring in a few differences between those properties and the one that is being assessed is much easier than doing that and then subtracting the built-up value.

Basically all of your data points are the built-up prices. So it is going to be easier to estimate the built-up value than the raw property value. Maybe not much easier, but definitely not harder.

Re:Detroit wants to be the first big American city to tax la... by mactrey on Wednesday October 18, 2023 @10:37AM (#37929328)
Then yes, I’ll agree with that. Both can be difficult but valuing just the underlying land is harder.