Ed: The following is an email thread showing progress on a recent Virginia Land Value Tax effort. It is presented here as a follow-up to a posting on the member Google group, but without some email addresses, which members may not desire to be publicly available.
From: Rick Rybeck
To: Tony Coughlan, Rowland, Marty (Parks)
Cc: cgusa-members@googlegroups.com, Ibrahima Drame
Thu, Feb 5 at 12:48 PM
Dear Tony,
Thanks for this important update.
Earlier this session, Delegate McNamara (Roanoke) introduced HB 10 which would have authorized a land value return tax shift throughout VA for ALL taxing jurisdictions. Unfortunately, this bill was voted down along party lines (Democrats voting against this bill) in the House Finance Committee. Therefore, it will NOT have a hearing nor be advanced by the Committee to the floor for a full vote.
However, will the House Finance Committee hold a hearing on the bills you mention below (for specific jurisdictions)? If so, could Virginia residents submit the following testimony:
“I support HB _____, to enable the application of different tax rates to land value assessments and improvement value assessments in [name of jurisdiction]. However, because this change would benefit all Virginia jurisdictions, I would recommend an amendment in the nature of a substitute. In particular:
[insert the language from HB 10]
Thank you for considering my views in support of HB ____.
Tony, please provide hearing dates and a link for submitting testimony.
If testimony such as that mentioned above is possible, I would encourage all of our Virginia colleagues to submit such testimony and to encourage their friends and allies to do the same for the sake of affordable housing, job creation, tax reductions (for residents and businesses while speculators would pay more), the more equitable sharing of infrastructure funding (those who benefit the most from public goods and services would pay the most), and sustainable development.
Regards,
Rick
Rick Rybeck, Director
Just Economics LLC
1669 Columbia Rd., NW, Suite 116
Washington, DC 20009-3625
202-439-4176
https://justeconomicsllc.com
Prosperity | Sustainability | Equity
From: Tony Coughlan
Sent: Thursday, February 5, 2026 11:14 AM
To: rick rybeck justeconomicsllc.com; Rowland, Marty (Parks)
Cc: cgusa-members@googlegroups.com <cgusa-members@googlegroups.com>; Ibrahima Drame
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: CGUSA members Virginia LVT issue
I wanted to update you all — Georgism continues to get some traction in Virginia. To remind you, under current law, four cities are allowed to tax improvements at a lower rate than land: Fairfax, Roanoke, Poquoson, and Richmond.
And now there are bills to expand that authorization to other cities in the Commonwealth:
House Bill 72 would add the City of Fredericksburg to the list of Virginia localities allowed to classify improvements to real property separately for real estate tax purposes and tax them at different rates, provided that the rate of tax on improvements (i) is not zero and (ii) does not exceed the rate of tax on the land on which it is located.
https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB72
House Bill 261 would add the City of Newport News to the list of Virginia localities allowed to classify improvements to real property separately for real estate tax purposes and tax them at different rates, provided that the rate of tax on improvements (i) is not zero and (ii) does not exceed the rate of tax on the land on which it is located.
https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB261
House Bill 282 would add the Cities of Charlottesville and Falls Church to the list of localities allowed to classify improvements to real property separately for real estate tax purposes and tax them at different rates, provided that the rate of tax on improvements (i) is not zero and (ii) does not exceed the rate of tax on the land on which it is located.
https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB282
On Monday, January 27, 2025 at 01:32:45 PM EST, Rowland, Marty (Parks) <martin.rowland@parks.nyc.gov> wrote:
Rick,
Thanks for input.
Marty
From: cgusa-members@googlegroups.com <cgusa-members@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of r.rybeck@justeconomicsllc.com
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2025 1:05 PM
To: Tony Coughlan
Cc: cgusa-members@googlegroups.com
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: CGUSA members Virginia LVT issue
Dear Tony,
Thanks for your insights into the vote and the bill, HB 1561. As you note (and as Herb noted below), the bill might not be what we want, given that it does not mandate that the rate on buildings be equal to or less than the rate on land. The angle related to data centers is interesting too. They are problematic, but there might be a better way to discourage them than by increasing the tax on their minimal improvement values.
I’m sharing your insights with the folks from Common Ground USA. Perhaps those of you from Virginia can coordinate an appropriate response.
Regards,
Rick Rybeck, Director
Just Economics LLC
1669 Columbia Rd., NW, Suite 116
Washington, DC 20009-3625
202-439-4176
https://justeconomicsllc.com
From: Tony Coughlan
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2025 6:51 AM
To: r.rybeck justeconomicsllc.com <r.rybeck@justeconomicsllc.com>
Subject: Re: CGUSA members Virgina LVT issue
Rick —
Thank you.
Here is the vote breakdown for HB 1561:
YEAS–Mundon King, Tran, Hernandez, Gardner, Keys-Gamarra–5
NAYS–Fowler, McNamara, Davis–3
ABSTENTIONS–0
NOT VOTING–Watts–1
I see that all of the YEAS (that is, the votes to stop the legislation) are Democrats. And all of the NAYS (that is, to have the legislation move forward) are Republicans.
That’s a bit amusing, because the bill (HJ 40) from last session to study LVT was sponsored by Democrats — Delegate Shin and Senator Boysko. https://legacylis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+HJ40
I also think it’s curious because Delegate Callsen — cosponsor with Delegate McNamara of HB1561 — is a Democrat and a member of the Finance Committee.
So, why were the five Ds on this subcommittee of the Finance Committee voting down a bill sponsored by their fellow D Committee member?
Maybe they don’t like McNamara. Maybe they missed that there was a D co-sponsor and so they thought it was an R-partisan bill. Maybe they need Georgist education. Maybe they wanted to just hurry to breakfast. I just watched the video, and Del. McNamara doesn’t seem surprised by the vote — I wonder why he didn’t mention Del. Callsen as a co-sponsor? I suspect the fact that Keys-Gamarra (D) opposed, and Ds are a majority on the Committee, and the only two who spoke in favor are Rs (McNamara and Fowler), explains the vote more than anything.
Data Centers: Delegate McNamara seems to suggest that data centers are opposed to his bill? I know that data centers have become a very hot topic, politically, in Virginia. Seems to me that their concerns are justified — don’t they have very valuable improvements on relatively inexpensive land? And McNamara is saying that the point of the bill is to shift the tax away from land and on to improvements?
Which brings me to my next point. This has the potential to bring Virginia further away from the Georgist ideal, does it not? Certainly, it has the potential to bring Fairfax, Richmond, and Roanoke away from the Georgist ideal as compared with where they are right now. Are we sure we want to support this bill?
Interesting that the Virginia Municipal League (VML) supports the bill. VML was tepid/neutral on my Georgist efforts 25 years ago.
Given the unusualness of a bill being untabled, the potential harm the bill would cause, and how a much better bill might be created, it seems to me this is an encouraging sign of an opening for education of the members of the Virginia General Assembly more than anything.
Thanks again for sharing all this with me, Rick.
Tony
On Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 06:37:10 PM EST, r.rybeck justeconomicsllc.com <r.rybeck@justeconomicsllc.com> wrote:
Dear Tony,
More details about the action on allowing a Tax Shift in Virginia.
Rick
Rick Rybeck, Director
Just Economics LLC
1669 Columbia Rd., NW, Suite 116
Washington, DC 20009-3625
202-439-4176
https://justeconomicsllc.com
Prosperity | Sustainability | Equity
From: cgusa-members@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2025 5:56 PM
To: joshua@urbantools.org
Cc: cgusa-members@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: CGUSA members Virgina LVT issue
Greetings Georgists,
First time posting here; I’ve been an advocate of LVT for several decades I live in Virginia and will also be contacting my state reps which include Del. McNamara who was the principal patron of House Bill No. 1561. The Bill was tabled in House Finance Sub-Committee #1 by a 5 to 3 vote. For those looking up who voted Yea or Nay keep in mind that the Nays were in favor of allowing the bill to go forward and the Yeas were against it because they were voting on a motion to table the bill, not whether to report (pass) it. Under Virginia legislative procedure any of those voting to table can move for the bill to be untabled so we need one of those 5 delegates to change position.
I wasn’t fond of HB 1561 as submitted because it struck from existing legislation (which pertained only to three cities) an important clause “providing that the rate of tax [on improvements] shall not exceed the rate of tax on the land on which it is located”. See Code of Va. Sec. 58.1-3221.1
In fact the bills sponsor stated that the intent of the bill (luckily not written into the bill itself) was to allow all jurisdictions to tax land at a lesser rate than improvements, just the opposite of what Georgists want. The bill would open the door for LVT in Virginia by allowing split rate, so the real work if this bill passes would be to educate the local taxing authorities about the benefits of LVT. The reason Del. McNamara introduced this upside-down amendment/reenactment of existing legislation was to benefit elderly homeowners who have small houses on high value lots and are being taxed out of keeping their homes – so he wants lower taxes on those homeowners land value. Of course there are ways to deal with that issue other than this proposal.
At the subcommittee session on Jan 20, Del. McNamara presented the bill stating it’s purpose, after which Delegate Keys-Gamarra asked him a question before moving to table. I’ve transcribed De. Keys-Gamarra’s question:
“Madam chair, I have a substitute motion but also I have a question if I may…I would like to ask the patron whether he considered tailoring his language to actually address the concern with respect to elderly or those who may have owned their property for longer periods of time where the situation you described where over time they have this small house on large property could be negatively impacted. I?m wondering whether perhaps some boundaries to protect those people such as the elderly would be helpful.”
McNamara responded that any such language could create a possible adverse impact on development and “we don’t want that”.
Keys-Gamarra then moved to table the bill because of “a concern of disparate treatment”. I’m not exactly sure how that follows after her question quoted above.
So the work at hand is convince the legislators that LVT does not lead to adverse impacts on development and that other legislation is needed to enable special accommodations for the elderly. And, importantly, to try to remove the strike-out from the proposed legislation.
See: https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20251/HB1561/text/HB1561
video of 1/20 subcommittee session, McNamara presentation starts at 7:48:22, purpose of amendment starts 7:51:44 (there’s a brief technical interruption); motion to table is at 7:57:24. https://sg001-harmony.sliq.net/00304/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2?fk=18180&viewMode=2
list of votes: https://lis.virginia.gov/vote-details/HB1561/20251/H10001V2510325
Hope this is useful,
Sage Goldstein
—– Original Message —–
From: Joshua Vincent [mailto:joshua@urbantools.org]
To: “Nicholas David Rosen”
Cc: s walton, CGUSA Members <cgusa-members@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, 26 Jan 2025 10:21:55 -0500
Subject: Re: CGUSA members Virgina LVT issue
Virginia municipal League is supportive. I’ll send off a phone call and an
email asking them to get it untabled, although that doesn’t happen often
during the session.
CSE has a mailing list for the Virginia general Assembly as well as vml
members. I’ll put together a message asking for action and explaining why
this is good public policy.
On Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 9:53?AM Nicholas David Rosen wrote:
> Dear fellow Georgists,
>
> I will send messages to my delegate (Alfonso Lopez) and senator (Barbara
> Favola). I don?t know how much they can do, even if they agree with me,
> but I will let them know of my views.
>
> Best Regards,
> Nicholas D. Rosen
>
> On Jan 26, 2025, at 8:24 AM, s walton <snswwalton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ?
> Can you help? CGUSA info address got this.
>
> sue
> ======
>
> Hello,
>
> Apologies for going quiet there for a while. The legislation to authorize
> LVT and split rate statewide in Virginia is live in committee but was
> narrowly tabled earlier this week. I’m not sure how much capacity you have,
> but this would be a crucial time to get this thing out of committee for a
> vote. This is the bill https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20251/HB1561
>
> Thank you,
>
> Lyle Solla-Yates
> Charlottesville, VA