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Landlords should have to pay income tax on their rental properties regardless of whether they're rented out or not. (gothamist.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/personalfinance@lemmy.ml
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/12162

Why? Because apparently they need some more incentive to keep units occupied. Also, even though a property might be vacant, there's still imputed rental income there. Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself instead of receiving an actual rent check from a tenant. That imputed rent ought to be taxed like any other income.

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[–] 1 point 3 years ago* (4 children)

I think it should just be illegal to not rent out real estate. People shouldn't be allowed to just park money in housing.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    "You shouldn't be allowed to own something and use it for any purpose that you want, just because you bought and own it"

    The fuck.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Can't drive a car without a license, rules around usage of things you own are pretty standard.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I can still buy a car and have it just sit there. The driving part is due to affliction of other people's well being. Me raising the money to buy a house and deciding I want it as a summer stay location, so I leave it sitting there while I'm somewhere else would have no harm on another's life.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    So lets turn it into the extreme.

    Say you are so rich, you buy every house on the planet. Which you will use as your summer/autumn/winter/spring stay locations.

    Would that still not harm on another's life?

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I believe that you should be able to keep a property empty if you choose, it should just be taxed in a way that's proportionate to the damage it causes to the community.

    Empty properties inflate housing costs -> Increased housing costs reduce the amount of people willing to live in the area -> Which reduces the amount of people able to work for local businesses.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Should someone be allowed to buy all the freshwater lakes around a major city and then not sell the water for people to drink?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    They could now if they wanted. Most lakes are government or private property. You think they'd want to lose profit margin?

    Not to mention the massive difference again, the wellbeing of other people. Houses are crafted by skilled workers, it's not a right to their labor, nor a right to the owner's property who purchased it after it was built. You do however have a naturalized right to survival.

    The point is, property taxes are fine but saying "um you should be forced by the government to use something you own in a specific manner" is nonsensical and authoritarian overreach at minimum.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    How many days is a homeowner allowed to be away from home? How does a government keep track of this without violating people's right to privacy?

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    183 days. You self-declare unless the government has a reason to audit. This is a solved problem already and we've been going by these standards for decades.

    It's called establishing a domicile in tax terminology.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    The government knows where you live. It is on your ID.

    You can only have one address on your ID. So they know where you don't live.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago*

    It's not on my ID, though. And even if it were, they'd need a way to monitor actual occupancy over time and there's no way that wouldn't be invasive.

    It's common and reasonable to be away from home for months at a time, and you have a right to travel. I can only imagine the burden this would place on someone who's away for medical treatment or supporting a distant family member. Or just out of the house for renovations or an issue they can't afford to fix currently.

    The administrative burden alone would be huge before you get to unintended consequences.

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