Pittsburgh is a mess. I grew up there and came back recently after 20 years. I walked a street for a few miles, and it was homeless after homeless. Heartbreaking change to see
I actually went through the Allegheny county “newcomer tax” just some months ago.
It was a bit of a strange process to appeal (I lost; my house is very weird for the area).
While I do see the benefit for not raising taxes so consistently for long-term owners (and could definitely see gentrification-esque effects) it does seem like a pretty obvious - if bitter - pill to swallow if the area is going to have any chance of continued growth.
Ultimately to the end of allowing Pittsburgh and the surrounding area to be a place with agglomeration effects, growth, and opportunities enough to allow smart and ambitious young people to remain in the area as opposed to brain draining into the Acela corridor.
It’s sad when a city that could go either way chooses to rust and its most talented young people no longer have the option of staying in their home if they want dynamic careers.
I’ve become intimately familiar with Youngstown, OH - about 70 miles away from the Pittsburgh - and it’s a great case study of how far a once-powerhouse city can fall if it doesn’t a actively reinvent itself.
And if you read the linked paper, particularly the section "Effects of Reassessments on Split-Rate Taxing Bodies" (split rate being the riff you're referring to), making land value assessments more accurate of course makes land value taxation more appealing.
Property taxes have a component that redistributes wealth from landlords to the working people, but it also has a component that penalizes making better use of the land. The former is usually called "land value tax" and the latter is the part of the tax that is proportional to the improved value of the land. The latter part incentivizes some uncertain amount more towards mcmansions and away from multi-unit buildings.
Property tax also encourages speculators to hold and trade underutilized parcels compared to land value tax. With property tax, the penalty for holding an empty parking lot in a dense urban center is much lower than under a land value tax system.
That’s one approach, but then you get people playing with the system, adding a single apartment to the multimillion dollar lot, or the aforementioned parking lot (technically a business). The great thing about LVT is that it bypasses these shell games. The biggest weakness is that you have to fight off any attempt to seize control of the valuation process, and that is going to be difficult except in places with highly engaged and intelligent voters.
I actually went through the Allegheny county “newcomer tax” just some months ago.
It was a bit of a strange process to appeal (I lost; my house is very weird for the area).
While I do see the benefit for not raising taxes so consistently for long-term owners (and could definitely see gentrification-esque effects) it does seem like a pretty obvious - if bitter - pill to swallow if the area is going to have any chance of continued growth.
It’s sad when a city that could go either way chooses to rust and its most talented young people no longer have the option of staying in their home if they want dynamic careers.
I’ve become intimately familiar with Youngstown, OH - about 70 miles away from the Pittsburgh - and it’s a great case study of how far a once-powerhouse city can fall if it doesn’t a actively reinvent itself.
And if you read the linked paper, particularly the section "Effects of Reassessments on Split-Rate Taxing Bodies" (split rate being the riff you're referring to), making land value assessments more accurate of course makes land value taxation more appealing.
Your company definitely bought / financed it, so it is clear evidence of your financial means at the purchase time.
Businesses that own land don't pay federal taxes, they can just declare 0 profit every year while paying for range rovers for the owners.
Eh? Working people always pay the property tax, landlords do not.
Evidence: the free cash flow varies wildly per geography even in the same tax region.
Landlords will accept negative cash flow in expectation of property value increase.