> Then the government has the choice of taxing them at the scheduled rate, or buying the property from them, for that cost.
Uhh... what? How is this not an insane system?
1. You give an accurate, good faith projection.
2. Government taxes you.
OR
3. Repeat.
For the tax authority (and the public) it's a win/win:
1. Property is taxed at correct rate (win)
2. City buys property at low cost (win)
Thats not the scenario I detailed. Read it again.
Your scenario would not happen. It's not one of the "win" cases, as I explained. What would be the point?
The government would only buy your house if you underestimated the value of your property. You wouldn’t be able to buy a comparable house with the proceeds because it got sold for much less than it was worth.
>The government would only buy your house if you underestimated the value of your property.
Nope, that's not in the rules. It's up to their discretion.
It seems like you agree it would be bad for the government to be able to buy your house when you give an accurate assessment. So why not design it out of the rules?
What makes an assessment "accurate"? If there was an objective answer to that question that could be used to adjudicate the rule, then the process wouldn't be needed in the first place.
> It seems like you agree it would be bad for the government to be able to buy your house when you give an accurate assessment.
You're thinking about this wrong (as is the person you were replying to). The whole point of this system is to define "accurate assessment" as the break-even price where you could take or leave being bought out. That's how much the property is actually worth to you. Not some estimate of the aggregate market price. By definition, it's value to you is greater than or equal to the market price because if it's lower, why haven't you sold already? In other words, the idea is not to tax market price, but "market price + consumer surplus".
Note that because everyone's valuation would go up, this should be paired with a reduction in the tax rate.
The option to buy the asset is discretionary. The government can buy it for any reason at any price. Furthermore, many of these assets are not commodities. What is the value of a thing for which only one exists?
Ignore the downvotes -- that is an insane system.