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Hanson said if her cleaning lady has to buy a business license, it is fair to require bands to buy one as well.
Dewey Beach, Delaware, prides itself on not having a property tax. This forces it to rely on taxes which are far less just and less logical than a simple tax on land value would be -- including a licensing fee for anyone who works in Dewey Beach!
And if one lets one's license skip a year, and then needs it again, one must pay for the year one didn't have a customer there, as well as the years in which one does.
Why? Well, perhaps the explanation is partially related to the fact that one company owns an amazing amount of the land in Dewey Beach, and it is rented out on ground leases which are currently at a very low level -- say, $550 to $650 per year -- and whose end comes in about 11 to 14 years. Many of these lots sell for $600,000 or more, when one comes on the market; those in the ocean block perhaps significantly more. The County last assessed the land in the late 1960s. County taxes on the cottages (excluding the land), which typically sell for $200,000 or less because they are aging and must be removed at the end of the lease, run from $300 to $900 a year (and the county tax is mostly for the school district). In neighboring Rehoboth Beach, city taxes typically run about 1/4 of county taxes, though the relationship is not constant because one relies on a 1960s assessment, the other on a 1970s one!!
Dewey Beach collects something each year from property owners to restore the beaches, in case there is erosion that the federal government or state government won't pay to correct, but the beaches were renourished this past winter, at no expense to the property owners. According to an article from a week or two ago, the tax is $0.40 per $100 of assessed value. That article says, "A property in Dewey Beach with an assessed value of $200,000 would pay a total of $240 each year in taxes – $80 for beach replenishment and $160 for capital improvements." But it doesn't seem to realize that the only homes with assessed values of $200,000 are valued by their sellers at over $6 million! $80 is trivial to the owner of those $6 million oceanfront homes.
But to the typical worker in Dewey Beach, the $109 annual license to work within the borders is not so trivial.
Does it make sense to tax workers? Or is there a better tax base than productive activity? What taxes work best? Which taxes do the least damage?
Is working a privilege, or a right? I understand licensing doctors, nurses, lawyers and the like; I don't understand licensing singers, painters, waiters, and other workers.
Land value taxation is the way to go.
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