Vancouver Housing & Land Value Tax Meetup
📅 Tuesday April 7, 5:30 - 6:30 PM
📍 FUNK. Coffee by Burrard Station, 1025 Dunsmuir Street (Google Maps)
Please join us for a casual meet up of people interested in solving the housing crisis. This is an opportunity to connect with the local Georgist and LVT community, share stories, and get to know like-minded people. Movements that change the world are driven by people who know each other!
BC gives big tax advantages to land gains at the expense of workers and builders, helping real estate investors outbid the people who live here. By shifting taxes to land, we can build a more productive, prosperous, and just economy that works for everyone.
Everyone is welcome. We would love to have you there!
Past Common Wealth Meetups
Why shift taxes to land value?
Land value is generated from the work and investments of the community around it, like public infrastructure and economic activity. We can capture and reinvest some of this publicly created value to fund tax relief for workers and builders; rebates to every household; and housing, transit, or other public needs. We call this land value return.
One way to do this is a land value tax (LVT), a levy on the value of land itself, excluding the buildings or improvements on it. Unlike taxes on income or buildings, which discourage work and construction, LVT doesn’t penalize productivity. It encourages efficient land use and development over idle speculation. That’s why economists often call it “the perfect tax”, one that could help address key drivers of the housing crisis. Variants of LVT have been successfully implemented around world including in Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, England, and Estonia.
For a quick primer, read the Land Value Tax One-Pager by the Center for Land Economics: “To spur housing growth, tax buildings less and land more”.
How can LVT benefit the housing market and overall economy?
By shifting taxes onto land, away from income or buildings, we can realign incentives in our economy to:
build more housing and improve affordability
discourage anti-productive land speculation
increase returns to employment, business activity, and construction
Research by Common Wealth Canada shows how an LVT in BC could generate enough revenue to replace all property and income taxes in the province. Read more at commonwealth.ca/bc-lvt.
What is land value tax?
Land Value Tax (LVT) is a levy on the value of land itself — not the buildings or improvements on it. Unlike taxes on income or buildings, which discourage productivity, LVT doesn’t penalize work or productive investments. Instead, it encourages efficient land use and development over idle speculation. That’s why economists often call it “the perfect tax”.
How can LVT benefit the housing market and overall economy?
By shifting taxes onto land, away from income or buildings, LVT realigns incentives in our economy to:
help make housing more affordable
discourage anti-productive speculation
promote sustainable, efficient development
address inequality and stagnant productivity
Because land value comes from the community — through public investments, services, and growth around it — LVT ensures that this publicly created wealth is returned to the community, building a fairer economy for all.
Research by Common Wealth Canada estimates that an LVT capturing 0.8% of BC’s land value could generate enough revenue to replace all municipal and provincial property taxes, property transfer taxes, and the speculation & vacancy tax (SVT). Read more at commonwealth.ca/bc-lvt.