Landlords should have to pay income tax on their rental properties regardless of whether they're rented out or not.

Income tax when you aren't receiving an income is a weird idea.

It sounds like the author wants a land tax, but hasn't ever heard the term.

There are so many empty business spaces in my town because landlords can just sit on them -- and potentially rake in tax credits -- even though no one wants to rent at their rates.

Needs to stop.

"Income tax on their properties whether they're rented or not" is just a long way of saying "land value taxation".

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

So much to unpack there, not the least of which are the sweeping generalization of "landlord" and the truly odd assumption that all landlords "enjoy" every single vacant unit "for themselves"... I mean, I appreciate your outrage, but damn. Stay in school?

There are lots of ways to tax landowners, but ultimately they all punish landowners for existing (which is a great thing for society) so instead they become weird neo-liberal market based schemes like tax credits for entrepreneurs who own land in a disadvantaged area for at least 3 years. so that the people that will be targetted by the tax are able to avoid it by claiming that they also own the bodega in their slum, thereby making them an entrepreneur.

Ultimately it's not that the people proposing these taxes can't come up with better tax schemes, it's that they are paid to come up with ridiculous schemes that are designed not to eliminate landowners.

Where do landlords get their money? (the money they exist with).

From renters.

If they have to pay money (as taxes) for rentals that aren't occupied, where will that money come from?

From renters in the form of higher rents.

Are you SURE you want to go through with this?

Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself

What's actually wrong with that?

The effect of this would be a massive disincentive for landlords to engage in major remodels or reconstructions to rental units, impeding growth in housing and remodeling of units beyond the kind of basic paint and sweep that is typical between tenants.

Just increase the land value tax.

What's really fucked up is that selling a rental property doesn't incur the same tax penalties as selling a lived-in home. Should be the opposite. How ass-backwards can you get?

Landlords generally aren't going to decline making money. If they're not renting these units out, that implies that doing so would cost them money despite the rent they would receive. You can force them to rent the units out anyway, but ultimately they're not going to agree to keep losing money forever. Either they find some loophole that does let them make money, or eventually you end up with abandoned property inhabited by people who can't or won't pay enough to actually maintain that property.

I've never owned rent-controlled property, but I did own a house which I kept empty for about a year instead of renting out. (Eventually I sold it.) Market rent wasn't enough to motivate me to do the work and take on the risks associated with having tenants. I know another guy who lives alone in a big two-family house for the same reasons. Some people who don't own property seem to think that renting it out is just free money, but things aren't that simple...

Great idea if you want to make poor people more poor.

Why do y’all hate poor people so much? Is it like a racism thing or something?

Pay income tax on income you aren't collecting?

I live in my house. The neighbor rents theirs. I have twice the square footage, and I maintain my house like it's mine, whereas they maintain theirs like it's a rental, which is to say my house is way fucking nicer... I don't have the paper thin wall paneling with the lines millef in it to look like shiplap, and the babyshit green pile carpet out of the fucking 70's, you know? That pileif shit rents for $1800/mo, and my mortgage is almost exactly $1k with homeowners, taxes, and warranty included. I don't know what the fuck I could get if I rented it, but what you're suggesting is that I should be obligated to pay income tax on what I might get??? Not the 1% property taxes, but like what? 30% or so?

How about fuck no? Do you own a house? Do you want to own a house? What you're suggesting could price anyone who makes less than a million dollars a year right the fuck out of the property ownership world... forever... That is a batshit crazy fucked up idea.