We tax sales at the state level, yet we haven’t taxed real estate sales statewide. It’s only fair that we tax purchases of the rich as well as purchases of the poor, if we are to tax purchases at all.
Together we, the people of Massachusetts, have made our home state a nice place. So most people moving or living here really want to buy land here. ‘Location, location, location’ they say, controls real estate value. That location is in relation to the rest of us, and in relation to the communities we’ve built together. It is that location that gives most market value to land, and it is that location which our communities made valuable in the first place. Returning a portion of the market value we created through our communities to maintain our communities makes sense. A state tax on land purchases would return a portion of the value we created as we built these fine communities.
Where are we going, why, and for what? This, in re-designing transport systems, while seeming frivolous, actually gets to the heart of the matter: The opportunities for our region in understanding and re-devising transport are enormous. We can spend less time in traffic, less money on fuel, insurance, repair, etc. and spend less of our lives suffering from car accidents, asthma, bronchitis, etc. Additionally, with less of our earnings leaving the region for fuel and car expenditures, we’ll have more to spend on each other.
When public transportation expands, many gain, but few gain more or more directly than the landowners near new stops. Reportedly the land value increase yielded to them is often about the same as the cost of the expansion. One way to afford such public transport expansion is taxing those of us who stand to gain the most; the land-owners near new subway stations and facilities, as reported on here.
It’s good to see more and more people bicycling.. Bicycling is very energy-efficient transport, the exercise promotes physical health, and it leaves the nation less reliant on imports, while polluting much less as well.
Outer space, where there is not air enough to breath, is closer to us on earth than Dorchester is to Medford. With only about 7.5 miles of air above us, and 400 ppm of CO2 now in our air, there is no longer airspace above earth for all the carbon in the fuels we could burn. We need to encourage each other to burn less, in order to maintain the climate, the agricultural systems and thus the food we all rely on. Nothing says ‘Slow down’ like taxes. A carbon tax will encourage all of us to develop the methods and the equipment all the world will need tomorrow, for our food system to continue to yield our meals.
Those before us, to eliminate scarce labor, substituted plentiful energy resource use via technology, which was brilliant in a world empty of people and full of resources,, but now we’re running out of resources and have plenty of labor. We can now afford, in creating new methods and technology, to use more labor and less rare resources, which will yield less pollution and more jobs. Resource taxes like carbon taxes inspire this needed change in technology to proceed faster.
With the current five plus percent sales tax applied to real estate sales, and a carbon tax inspiring development of lasting infrastructure, we can assure each of us, when young, of a fair chance at life, and when old, of the help we all deserve. We can build the strength of our bridges and our schools. We can insure each of us access to the jobs we need to survive, and we can aid and guide those building the businesses that address the challenges before us.
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