Common Wealth Canada

Andrew Yang says we should stop taxing workers, and tax AI instead.

"We should try to stop taxing labor."

Let's take it a step further: shift income taxes to land and pay dividends, as Sam Altman has proposed. Land gets more valuable as AI makes us more productive.

Our Housing Minister may not say it, but Canadians know it.

"It's basic common sense: for homes to become affordable again, prices must come down...

Waiting for wages to catch up would be a decades-long endeavour, permanently shutting multiple generations out of ownership."

Great case for taxing land instead of hard work.

"Even though you didn't do anything to increase the value of your land, it increased thanks to the labour of others."

louder for those in the back

The visionary author understood that taxing land instead of workers can steer us away from a dystopian future.

We could virtually eliminate income tax with the excess profits of Canada's natural resources.

That would create a much fairer and stronger economy.

To make number go down, number must go down

Somehow, this simple truth has been lost in the public discourse. So many politicians say they want affordability, without saying how to bring down prices.

But definition that's not possible.

No matter how technologically advanced and productive we get, working class people will fall behind because so much of that potential is going to banks and land owners.

The gains of technology would be more broadly shared across society if we taxed land, instead of work.

Republican senator from Ohio wants to tax land rather than property.

Property taxes discourage housing and encourage hoarding. Land value tax fixes this.

tax dirt, not work

Across North America, cities are learning that we shouldn't tax building more than passively getting rich from land. Tax land, not productivity.

"The YIMBYS are starting to realize that upzoning isn't enough...It doesn't disrupt the mechanisms of speculating."

BC's property assessment was designed so we could tax land rents more, and productivity less.

It's the best place to do it with the best available data.

BREAKING: Canada suffers worst job loss since 2022, when economists were expecting a job GAIN

- Canada lost net 84K jobs in one month, pushing unemployment to 6.7%
- Youth unemployment surges to 14%

When labour is at risk, we should stop taxing work. Tax AI and fund UBI.

We're overtaxing productivity and undertaxing land.

The godfather of capitalism believed we should tax land instead of work income. It would make our economy far more productive and fair, while better rewarding individual effort and risk.

Imagine working full-time to barely make rent and the house makes more than you (it's taxed less than you too)

The key to stability in a Post-Labour Economy is simple:

Share the wealth generated by machines as humanity's common wealth

Bloomberg article makes the case for land value tax.

"LVTs don't punish homeowners for construction, renovation, or improvement...they make underutilized land more expensive than productive land, encouraging development and deterring land speculation."

Taxing land rewards effort. Taxing work punishes it. 🐈

The cost of housing comes mostly from land values, which are shaped by the work society does around it. It's fair for that value to be shared with the larger society that created it.

Land is a big deal.

Maybe the solution to the housing crisis lies there.

Let's take it a step further: shift income taxes to land.

It's the 1 resource we all need to live that will get more expensive as we get more productive with AI.

bsky.app/profile/comm...

[BREAKING:] Andrew Yang says we should stop taxing workers, and tax AI instead. That can fund UBI.

"We should try to stop taxing labor."

Tax land, not work.

"BC assessment authority was intentionally set up in the '70s to eventually do land value tax. That was the whole point" — Paul Finch, President of BC General Employees' Union

LVT can help us invest in housing and transit in a way that builds voter support.

The largest statement in the history of the economics profession is a call for universal carbon dividends paid to every citizen.

Economists generally agree: tax pollution and return the money to us.

1/2 of your labour goes to using land
1/4 of your labour goes to the government

How about we tax land instead of hard work?

"Even if you only wanted to buy a home to live in, you're paying for the fact that it's gonna go up in value." - Daryl Fairweather, Chief Economist of Redfin

Transit projects raise land values without property owners doing anything.

Capturing some that value to fund the project is a virtuous cycle.

"What we've seen in the past decade is the largest transfer of wealth from the public to the private sector since the province was founded."

— Paul Finch, President of BC General Employees' Union

Tax the land.