I think it was Mark Twain who said, ‘If something is beautiful, and money can be made by destroying it, someone will come along to destroy it.’ Or maybe it was John Muir.
A good example is height limits in Byron Bay, as discussed in the most recent issue of The Echo. Higher buildings bring in more money, or so the developers believe. So Byron’s attractive appearance is destroyed.
Since what they are destroying is valuable, the destroyers have money on their side. Sadly, preserving beauty generally brings in no money.
And in this case, the developers have the government on their side. It has always seemed strange to me, but property taxes are based on the value of the land, but not the buildings.
My own property tax is based on the land value, but not on the value of the buildings, of my home. This encourages making the buildings as large as possible. I would pay no more tax.
I often hear people complain about the huge buildings that fill up expensive land in places like Wategos. McMansions, they are sometimes called.
The reason people build that way is because the government encourages it. The government says, ‘Make your house as large as you like, because we will not tax you any more.’ You can hardly blame people for doing what the government encourages.
The same is true of developments in Byron. The government actively encourages higher buildings with its tax policy. Larger buildings pay no more property tax. Property tax is based on the land value only.
It seems surprising that workers don’t complain, and try to change the law. Property taxes are wealth taxes. If we had more wealth taxes, the taxes on income could be lower.
Wealth taxes could also help to change the enormous disparities in wealth which are such a troubling feature of our society.
It is hard to make wealth taxes on things like stocks, bonds, and bank deposits, because their value is so fluid. But wealth taxes on buildings as well as the land value would be easy to assess.
A change in the law about property taxes would certainly help Byron.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
