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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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The government has to determine what it believes the "highest and best use" of the land would be in order to determine the value of the land itself.

No way, I would not support that in any fashion. The value of the land would still be decided by the market, the government would have no say in terms of what the land is used for. Why do you think the government has to come in and determine a specific use for the land before it can be valued on the market?

Because if you set a land tax at 100% of the "land value," then the market is going to price that in. Either you declare before-hand what you think the "value" is, or people who want to make money speculating on land will find ways to attribute value to assets/improvements and away from land, wrecking your signal.

So someone cant put a peanut selling stand on a piece of super prime real estate and pay peanut stand rates while the market appreciates. If the government is never going to check, then all of my properties are actually churches and church gift shops (churches dont pay property tax).

HBU is really just a component of appraising the land's value, if there's a value in the potential for a business in X location even if the current owner doesn't intend to realize that value directly, it still increases what the property is worth.