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PaperclipPerfector  9hr ago (text post)   163 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Sometimes it’s good to admit when your enemies do something smart. I like Mamdanis Pied-a-Terre tax. My gut says most of these are likely tax dodgers which isn’t fair to the rest of the city. Either legally tax-dodging by limiting days or being smaller fish not getting caught. Making them pay a PAT tax or NY income taxes seems fundamentally fair to me.

And if it gets people to sell second homes and instead stay in hotels 2 months out of the year I think that’s a net positive for a city with limited housing.

I’ll disagree with a million things with Mamdani and NYC policy but the concept of a PAT tax feels fair to me. I would be in favor of lower taxes overall but a PAT feels like it would capture a lot of people who use NYC services but dodge their taxes which boost tax fairness in my opinion.

LVT would do this more effectively, efficiently, and fairly.

Ever since Scott posted his review of Georgism I've been increasingly on board as I keep seeing issues with not-LVT. It's not a perfect solution that would fix literally all of society's ills, but like 90% of anything related to taxes (and ~50% of anything related to housing) seems easily solvable with LVT.

Ever since Scott posted his review of Georgism

That was a guest post from Lars Doucet, not Astral Codex Ten's own material.

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