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Landlords should have to pay income tax on their rental properties regardless of whether they're rented out or not. (gothamist.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de to c/personalfinance@lemmy.ml

440 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/12162

Why? Because apparently they need some more incentive to keep units occupied. Also, even though a property might be vacant, there's still imputed rental income there. Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself instead of receiving an actual rent check from a tenant. That imputed rent ought to be taxed like any other income.

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[–] Fox@pawb.social 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How many days is a homeowner allowed to be away from home? How does a government keep track of this without violating people's right to privacy?

[–] Trudge@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

183 days. You self-declare unless the government has a reason to audit. This is a solved problem already and we've been going by these standards for decades.

It's called establishing a domicile in tax terminology.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The government knows where you live. It is on your ID.

You can only have one address on your ID. So they know where you don't live.

[–] Fox@pawb.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's not on my ID, though. And even if it were, they'd need a way to monitor actual occupancy over time and there's no way that wouldn't be invasive.

It's common and reasonable to be away from home for months at a time, and you have a right to travel. I can only imagine the burden this would place on someone who's away for medical treatment or supporting a distant family member. Or just out of the house for renovations or an issue they can't afford to fix currently.

The administrative burden alone would be huge before you get to unintended consequences.