You would need to either live there, or pay tax for renting, or pay tax for empty apartment. For each existing apartment, one of these three must apply.
To certain degree you could cheat by having each family member officially live in a different apartment, or renting the place to a fictional person. But the former limits you to one apartment per adult family member, and the latter still requires you to pay some tax (and produce fake paperwork that could be audited if the fictional rent is too low).
As a side effect, it would also prevent tax evasion, when an apartment is rented unofficially. If you don’t pay tax for rent, you need to pay tax for empty apartment.
I probably used a wrong word here. Is tax for leasing the right term? It was supposed to mean an income tax on the money you get when someone else uses your apartment.
I think the problem is, at least in the US, income tax is paid to the state and federal governments, while a vacancy tax would be paid to the local government? And while you have to declare rental income, (I think) you don’t have to say what property it comes from unless you’re audited.
It would be possible to change this, but I think if you want to institute a vacancy tax you just define vacant and leave it at that.
I’ve always wondered why cities didn’t put an extra tax on empty apartments, in which case the whole thing becomes an easy win-win.
How do you define and enforce “empty,” though?
This doesn’t seem that hard compared to most lawmaking? Something like, the unit is empty if it is unoccupied more than 40% of days?
They do this in Vancouver
https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/which-u-s-cities-have-a-vacancy-tax-208020
Not sure about the enforcement, though.
You would need to either live there, or pay tax for renting, or pay tax for empty apartment. For each existing apartment, one of these three must apply.
To certain degree you could cheat by having each family member officially live in a different apartment, or renting the place to a fictional person. But the former limits you to one apartment per adult family member, and the latter still requires you to pay some tax (and produce fake paperwork that could be audited if the fictional rent is too low).
As a side effect, it would also prevent tax evasion, when an apartment is rented unofficially. If you don’t pay tax for rent, you need to pay tax for empty apartment.
Why are you introducing a tax for renting? Are you trying to add a further subsidy for home ownership?
I probably used a wrong word here. Is tax for leasing the right term? It was supposed to mean an income tax on the money you get when someone else uses your apartment.
I think the problem is, at least in the US, income tax is paid to the state and federal governments, while a vacancy tax would be paid to the local government? And while you have to declare rental income, (I think) you don’t have to say what property it comes from unless you’re audited.
It would be possible to change this, but I think if you want to institute a vacancy tax you just define vacant and leave it at that.