Why? Because apparently they need some more incentive to keep units occupied. Also, even though a property might be vacant, there's still imputed rental income there. Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself instead of receiving an actual rent check from a tenant. That imputed rent ought to be taxed like any other income.
Landlords do have to pay an income tax on property regardless of whether it is occupied or not, it is just that when a property is not being rented, it generates 0 income and 30% of $0 is $0.
Income tax on no income sounds fucking stupid. Just up property tax on the 3th or 4th house or apartment by a fuckton, watch everyone panic sell their shit crashing the housing market into oblivion and call it a day. Ez affordable housing.
Landlords should pay 100% tax on their empty rentals.
You'll see how fast they will accept any and all new tenants, at a much lower price.
Which would also flood the market with housing, lowering the prices even more until renting becomes an actual beneficial option compared to buying and paying off a loan.
Real estate would also not be seen as an investment anymore.
Not to be a downer, but how does this fit into personalfinance? Like at all?... I mean, I agree with the point but this belongs in politics or something.
ITT:
"If not for ticket scalpers, concerts wouldn't happen! They're providing a valuable service by hoovering up supply with their high capital and low morals, and then drip feeding it back to us at increased prices! Ticket scalpers, by buying all tickets at once, increase demand for bigger concerts, a net win for everyone!"
Anyway, yes, it won't fix the whole systemic issue and calling it an "income tax" is silly (it can just be a tax), but if the way to get you over the line is getting landlords to pay extra for empty apartments/houses so be it.
The maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry.
How are you supposed to keep them from passing on the cost of taxes to their tenants?
You have to realize that they still "own" a limited resource that lends them power to leverage over others. The only way you make this abuse go away is to have the people collectively own the land. Any accommodating regulations you place on landlords will only be temporary until they are worn down and removed.
The amount of vacant units in cities where people actually want to live tends to be highly exaggerated (Manhattan is generally sitting somewhere around a 5% vacancy rate), but twisting income tax into some weird kind of tax on unrealized value is administratively messy and completely unnecessary when we already have much simpler solutions in the forms of land value taxes or even basic property taxes. Not to mention, increasing taxes on rental units just increases everyone's rent, which is a rather odd strategy if the aim is to make housing more affordable.
People really will propose literally anything except the wild concept of building more housing.
I don't know about this, but the non occupant owners should have to pay obscene property taxes and then reduce the rates for owner-occupants to a reasonable level.
The state should stop enforcing the legal rights of landlords to own property and exclude people from its use through physical force, and should organize the people enough that they can defend themselves from retaliation to this change.
What are the unintended consequences of this proposal? It is amazing how many people replying to this topic have proposed something without considering what effect it will have. Sure there is a problem, but most solutions have serious negative downsides.
Many landlords don’t even pay taxes on the money they DO make.
They can depreciate a property to offset their income, even though the property is going up in value. The catch is that they have to pay taxes on more of the money they get from selling the property. But if they don’t sell, potentially no taxes for decades. And if they leave it to their kids in their will, no taxes there either and the kid’s cost basis in the property is the market value at the time they received it. So they can start the depreciation all over again.
This is how my non-expert self understands it anyway. It’s part of what draws some people into real estate.
In Denmark most apartments have “residence requirement” - if you own a unit and keep it empty the city will fill it with someone waiting for public housing.
The maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry.
Landlords should have their rental properties seized and placed under the ownership of the local government. Berlin did it. You want to bring housing prices back into reach of the middle class? Stop letting people hoard houses.
That's how it is here in Belgium. I pay tax on the income I would get if I would rent out my apartment, even when I'm actually living in it.
Luckily the amounts are based on rent prices as they were in 1975. It's indexed, which means it gets adjusted for (general) inflation, but not for the increased prices in the housing market which is much higher than inflation.
This is just tinkering around the edges. We need land value taxes. This is a guaranteed way to solve these massive housing crises occurring in so many Western nations. LVT ensures expensive land is utilised better. Either by highly productive businesses, or higher density dwellings. Either way, society makes more efficient use of the land, and prices are constrained. It's an excellent way to ensure land banking is disincentivised, and that rentals don't stay vacant. Even Adam Smith was in favour of an LVT. Economists are almost unanimous on its efficacy. The only reason we don't widely deploy them is because it will hurt house prices and voters don't like that.
Landlord should always have a few not rented places so that when someone is ready to move there is a place they can go. They also should be doing major remodels and upgrades approximately every 30 years which means a long stretch of not occupied.
Though I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea, why not require rent payments be rewarded with a proportion of equity shares equal to rent (less a small prercatage for upkeep)? That's entirely within the capitalist model but drives value into the hands of the people/occupants where it belongs. Aggregating land holding to a small class of the population is clearly untenable. Give people their equity back. Seems more direct.