Extra help for idlers, from Jim Houlihan

New data shows, once again in 2007, that Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan doesn’t think our tax laws give enough subsidy to land speculators, so he’s doing something extra to underassess vacant land.

By law and ordinance, he is supposed to put assessments at a specific proportion of what he estimates the actual value of real estate to be. These ratios have been adjusted over the years, and documentation is sparse, but for 2007 it appears that parcels containing single family or apartment buildings up to six units are to be assessed at 16% of value, and vacant land at 22%.

Annually, the Illinois Department of Revenue calculates the ratio between value assessed by Mr. Houlihan’s staff, and actual sales prices. The results for 2007(pdf)? Residential 8.34%, vacant 7.81%. (Not quite as bad as some previous years, however.)

The County is not ignoring this problem. Since the Assessor seems unable to assess vacant land at a higher percentage of value than land people use, they have changed the assessment policy so that, beginning wtih 2009, both residential and vacant land are to be assessed at 10% of value. We shall see how this proceeds.

Carbon tax vs. cap & trade

If global warming is in fact a problem, and if it can be controlled by reducing carbon emissions, then Georgists point out that “cap & trade” is a lousy way to accomplish this.  Yoram Bauman says  that a cap becomes effectively a floor, and that British Columbia actually has a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

Even if there’s no need to reduce carbon emissions, I don’t see how a carbon tax could be worse than taxes on retail sales and earned income.

Remember the Laffer Curve?

As a result of high taxes on cigarettes, UIC economist David Merriman estimates that “75 percent of cigarettes smoked in Chicago come from packs that don’t bear city tax stamps.”  Many, of course, also lack county and state stamps. And according to the Tribune.

In 2006, city revenues from cigarette taxes came in at a little less than $32 million. By 2008, they had declined to about $25 million. This year, they’re projected to drop again.

Helluva way to run a railroad

According to the November issue of Trains Magazine (not on the web afaik):

[T]wo key players …on the Amtrak board, Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo and Amtrak president Joseph Boardman, cannot have any contact or even be in the same room together for one year due to federal ethics rules, because Boardman was the previous FRA administrator.

Couldn’t they just hire a lobbyist, or maybe get one of BHO’s Chicago buddies,  to contrive a way around the ethics laws?

“Health” care reform

I don’t see much thoughtful discussion of “health” care reform. (The quotes are because we’re really just talking about medical care.  Health is much more impacted by things like sewers, water treatment, and garbage collection than by physicians and hospitals). So I enjoyed this discussion of the Australian system compared to the U. S., with some talk of  the UK and France thrown in.  Especially the comments are enlightening.

The conclusion seems to be that to make decent medical care available pretty much universally and at a reasonable price, we need to squeeze the providers and work around the insurance companies. One commenter proposes mandatory catastrophic insurance combined with 100% consumer-paid routine care (which, to give this item a Georgist theme, can be funded out of the citizens’ dividend).  This is too reasonable to gain a fair trial in my lifetime.

Global climate data disappeared?

That’s the inference from this article. The original global climate data compiled in the 1980s seems to have been lost.  Adjusted data remain, but the adjustment methods apparently aren’t fully documented.

I doubt that this development is going to change anybody’s mind, especially because it originated in National Review. But it will be interesting to see whether it even gets much media coverage.

What Sam Zell knows

Several times each year I give a little talk at HGS about “What the Rich Know.”  And I always point out that the richest man in Chicago, Sam Zell, got that way not so much from smart investments in real estate and other monopolies, but more because he is extremely clever in taking advantage of income tax laws and regulations.  (And that’s why increasing tax rates on high incomes doesn’t really bother the rich much, nor does it raise much revenue, except for tax lawyers.)

We see another example today, with a Sun-Times report that tax expert Robert Willens suggests that IRS will eventually examine the (pending) “sale” of the Cubs, which has been structured to avoid $300 million in capital gains tax that would otherwise be due.

Update Sept 27 2009: Kevin Horrigan suggests that, if Zell doesn’t want to pay the tax, America’s taxpayers should be entitled to a share in the team.

For those who say government can’t run anything right, I say, compared to what? Not winning a World Series for 101 years?

Thanks to Al Katzenberger of Public Revenue Education Council/ Common Ground USA for the tip.

Walkability pays

Lots of folks like to live at relatively high densities.  Though a big house and yard are nice, they prefer easy access to facilities and services. That’s why land prices are usually high in densely-developed areas (One might say that high price is the market’s way of maintaining  density).

None of this is news to Georgists or observant urbanites, but it’s nice to note that it’s been documented that “walkability raises home values in U. S. cities.” How much? Well, computing a “walkability score” based strictly on proximity to 13 different services (apparently with no consideration of whether there are maintained sidewalks or paths), in Chicago each one point increase (equivalent to one percent of the total range) increases residential land value by $5260.  This incidentally is the highest amount for any of the 15 cities studied

Public transportation is not directly recognized in this study, altho it is acknowledged that walkability is somewhat correlated with transit service.  Therefore part of this value may be due to transit.

The walkability study is among many interesting resources identified in VTPI‘s new compilation and analysis “Where We Want to Be: Home Location Preferences and their Implications for Smart Growth (pdf). “