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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/economics@lemmy.ml
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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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[–] 27 points 3 years ago (3 children)

That’s how it works in Switzerland and there are no empty unrented places anywhere to be seen.

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

    They also have relatively low amount of homelessness.

    Based on the mean projection, 0.02% of the adult population is homeless in this country. The proportion in neighbouring Austria is 0.25%. In Germany, the share of homelessness is 0.41%, in France it is 0.22% and in Italy the share is 0.08%.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Yes but that’s not the reason why.

    There’s actually a very big shortage of homes here. Finding a place is hell, and not just because of the price.

    Also they are planning to get rid of this soon.

    Taxing people on an empty house makes sense to me. Taxing them on an income that they don’t get from some house that they live in makes zero sense to me. There’s wealth tax for that, but people are living in the house that they bought. That’s what we should encourage people to do if they buy a house.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    If you have an imputed rental income tax in addition to a wealth or property tax, then I think one has to go. Doesn't seem right to have both.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Yes there’s both but the wealth tax is much less significant than the imputed rental income

    What I really dislike about it is that if you have a house and rent it out you pay a tax on that rent. If you live on it you pay a tax on a rent that doesn’t exist. It almost incentivizes you to rent your house rather than living in it.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago

    It does exist, but it's not obvious because it's income in the form of the rent you don't have to pay because you are both the owner and possessor of the house. It's kind of like how, in the USA at least, if I get free tuition because a parent or spouse works at the university I attend, I will owe income tax on the tuition I'm not paying. Or, if I have some debt that gets cancelled somehow, I will owe income tax on that amount.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Do you have any info about this? Is it a tax on the value of vacant units, or a tax on the possible rental income of a vacant unit? I would like to read more about it. Can't find much on Google.

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