I never understood this argument. People are not priced out of their homes. Their homes are rising in prices so they actually have assets to match the price increase. Yes they might not be able to afford the tax, but they have a million dollar asset that they could use. The whole point of the tax is to disencent a single person living in a huge house all by themselves.
The argument is that you shouldn't be forcing people out of their homes. The reason you don't get the argument is that you view people's property as something you should optimize for others, while the people making the argument are believers in strong property rights, especially that they want to be left alone without oppressive government actions. The other half of the argument is that your terms are vague. Not every million dollar house is huge. It could be used to price people out of normal SFH just because the land is zoned in a way that allows higher density housing.
You're literally proposing a scheme that views removing people from their homes as beneficial. Your values don't match with others. That's the disconnect.
And by the way, that increase in value over the years is because other people want to live in that area. Perhaps we should disincentivize that instead of punishing the people who made it a nice area to live in.
This would only work if the assessed value was the actual price i.e. if the agency making the assessment had been bound to buy the property at the price it has assessed. Of course, if such an obligation existed, the land would not have high value in the first place.
The whole argument is how to make housing more affordable to live in. Your argument is ... pay more for land tax to avoid speculation however if you live somewhere in order to pay for it you need to consistently be more productive than the speculators (who would just charge the land tax to the renters anyways). Which doesn't solve the problem in any way shape or form.
It does because taxes don't disappear. Say we tax land at 4% and the value of all the land in the US is 100k per person. That means the average person pays an extra 4k and each person receives a $4,000 check. If you own an average amount of land you aren't any worse off.
But what is considered average can change. This is especially true since the land value is not uniform like your hypothetical example. Any system like this can be manipulated for one group to use against a minority group.
That might be how it starts, but history shows rates balloon over time. We already have senior being kicked out because of property tax. Your definition of "tons" of land is vague and may be used against people who have moderate amounts of land (.5-1ac).
