That might also help clear the glut of otherwise-cheap properties that cannot be sold because millions in back taxes have accrued that have to be paid by the buyer.
If the government buys and resells them, they can make a profit and clear the outstanding taxes that are making these properties sit vacant.
(I may have misunderstood how that law works, though, and welcome corrections. I just know there are burned-out wrecks and mansions alike on sale for $1 or so, plus $a million billion in property taxes)
When the government of Guatemala started buying up property at the reported taxable valuation in the 50s, the CIA overthrew the elected government and installed a puppet. Then they had about 40 years of brutality, genocide and civil war. But it worked out OK for the United Fruit Company, which was the whole point.
But I’m sure it will be better if you do it inside the US.
Well, the United Fruit debacle sent up a lot of warnings in the historical record. And while I’m sure that WalMart would like to THINK that they have the kind of pull necessary to point the CIA at some other country pulling this on WalMart properties… They simply don’t.
Beyond that, a city or county or state trying to push legislation like this on US soil would have support from basically every big-box store chain in existence (with the probable exception of Costco). However, the opposition would also be able to gather data and donations online, as well as spread petitions and bring some very talented legal minds onto their side of the table.
Personally, I don’t think that the fight would be anywhere near as one-sided if it happened today.
Taxes must be assessed on current occupancy, not the reduced value of a theoretical vacancy. The “dark store” ruse is equivalent to life insurance paying out the value of your dead corpse, as opposed to covering your value as a living, breathing human being.
Well, TR was always more interested in a good struggle than “the easy way”. He apparently overcame asthma as a child through sheer willpower, and organized the Rough Riders to participate in active combat. To this very amateur historian, he seems like the sort who would have been disappointed in himself for not personally giving Richard Spencer that bust in the chops. And I’m quite certain that his response to Charlottesville would not have included the phrase “very fine people on both sides”…
The family had an unusual sense of noblesse oblige, one that was rooted in the attitudes of New Amsterdam toward business, competition, community, and the commonweal, as well as in the secure position of Old Money that allows one the luxury of (seemingly, to opponents) betraying one’s ostensible class interests.
Dark store valuation should apply to all commercial property.
Assessing property values based partly on the properties income is an income tax not a property tax and leads to double taxation. The owner pays a tax on income via the commercial property tax and then is taxed as income through the income tax.
