Fwd: Joe Polito's excellent letter in today's Star!

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Frank de Jong

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Jun 18, 2021, 11:55:31 AM6/18/21
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richard pere

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Jun 18, 2021, 12:00:01 PM6/18/21
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Is there a reference or source for the speculation tax in the 1970s mentioned in the letter?  Would be good to have some more information on that.

Yes, good letter!
Richard


From: earthshar...@googlegroups.com <earthshar...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Frank de Jong <fde...@earthsharing.ca>
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2021, 11:55 a.m.
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Subject: Fwd: Joe Polito's excellent letter in today's Star!
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Polito

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Jun 18, 2021, 2:17:09 PM6/18/21
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Thanks Frank.  The Globe also had an item on real estate 'profit mongers' by a couple of activists who saw housing as a human right. They too missed the land cost issue. 

I provided the editor with the following list of references. 1 b) is evidence. 

Number 5. includes the case of the speculation tax which worked too well in Ontario in the 70's because it was not done incrementally. 

Indirectly we know that when we tax things we do not want like smoking, and carbon, there is success. This is the letter (if the link did not work) and the references follow: 

Taxing windfalls would discourage investors from driving up land prices

Fri., June 18, 2021timer1 min. read

‘It’s wrong on all possible levels’: Critics slam development group buying $1-billion in single-family houses for rentals, June 14

John Pasalis’ commentary on the “Financialization’ of housing” was important, but it does not address the key issue — that we need to control land costs to make housing more affordable and plentiful.

The obstacle is what the greatest economists from Adam Smith to Keynes call economic rent — windfall profits or unearned income. Four Nobel Prize winners wrote a letter to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warning him about it. John Stuart Mill asked, “If some of us grow rich in our sleep, where do we think this wealth is coming from? It doesn’t materialize out of thin air. It doesn’t come without costing someone, another human being. It comes from the fruits of others’ labours, which they don’t receive.”

A $100,000 serviced house lot should not sell for a million. Smith’s answer is still valid: taxing the windfall would discourage investors from bidding up land prices. Rotman academic Richard Florida says tax land not buildings. A BMO report by Robert Kavcic lists several strategies which could control land costs; one is a speculation tax as used in the 1970s. Another is to include a higher percentage of capital gains on non-primary residences.

Lower tax rates were designed to encourage investment in productive machines, equipment, buildings, and technology, not to make housing more costly.

Joseph Polito, Toronto

 

1. The iconic conservative Milton Friedman Agreed  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJIUXV4fzGA  

 

b) and it worked in Milbourne Pennsylvania  

2. The logic of why the windfall profits should go back to the community.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTxyNQ0ea-k&t=13s

 

3. A High School teacher’s published explanation

 

4. An explanation by Rotman academic Richard Florida

 

5. Bmo report

 

6. Nobel Prize winners agreed




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brendan hennigan

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Jun 18, 2021, 3:19:04 PM6/18/21
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Joe,
Your letter focused on the right things - unearned income and how and why it should be more heavily taxed.
LVDM: Land Values Do Matter.
50 weeks to the next Ontario election, it is something we ought to be promoting.
Regards,
Brendan




From: earthshar...@googlegroups.com <earthshar...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of richard pere <rpere...@hotmail.com>
Sent: June 18, 2021 11:59 AM
To: earthshar...@googlegroups.com <earthshar...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Joe Polito's excellent letter in today's Star!
 

Suzanne Honsl

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Jun 18, 2021, 4:30:31 PM6/18/21
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Joe,

Your letter in the Star was great! Very well stated and covered the most important concepts as well ad driving home the urgency of this issue.

Sue

Polito

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Jun 18, 2021, 7:54:01 PM6/18/21
to earthshar...@googlegroups.com, richard pere
Thank you Sue.  I have been somewhat aware of the need for monetary reform for a long time, and the Great Recession motivated me to take a deeper dive. I stumbled on people like Frank and Michael Hudson and came to realize that there was a two part need, and those two changes greatly complement each other for the benefit of all. 

Cheers

Joe

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