A tax based on land value is in many ways ideal, but many economists dismiss it by assuming it could not raise enough revenue. Standard sources of data omit much of the potential tax base, and undervalue what they do measure. The purpose of this paper is to present more comprehensive and accurate measures of . . . → Read More: The Hidden Taxable Capacity of Land: Enough and to Spare
 Comments are closed  Publication  Land Economics -- General, Land Rent, land value tax, Property taxation, Public finance, Tax policy (with Richard Noyes) Where a large share of fiscal revenue comes from property taxes, individual income tends to be high. There is a clear propensity for the local economy to grow faster than in those states which are less dependent upon the property tax than on taxes linked to income or sales. Our findings begin . . . → Read More: The Income-Stimulating Incentives of the Property Tax There is a great interest stirring currently in Canada and elsewhere in tapping for the public revenues more of the economic rent of natural resources and/or the unearned increment of land values. “Economic rent”, not long ago a strange alien wording, has become common currency in Canadian discussion. Ontario has enacted a tax on . . . → Read More: The Many Faces of Site-Value Taxation Comments are closed Address, Publication Land Rent, land value tax, Politics, Property taxation, Public finance, Tax policy, tax reform In 1986, Congress made realized capital gains fully taxable, in the spirit of uniformity animating the 1986 reform. Now we are witnessing a major effort to revive the exclusion of part or all of capital gains from taxable income, partly on the grounds that much of the gains are “phantom” income, an illusion of inflation. . . . → Read More: The Partiality of Indexing Capital Gains THE TREATMENT of rent as public revenue is part and parcel of an organic theory of the State. In the contractual theory, government is a kind of business which extends services to landowners. They only need pay for benefits received, which are construed in the narrowest possible terms. In the organic theory, landowners hold . . . → Read More: The Philosophy of Public Finance Comments are closed Publication Economic History, Economic Science, Political Theory, Public finance, Tax policy “The regressive property tax” has become a common block phrase among economists and in the popular press. President Nixon’s support for revenue-sharing is increasingly based on the need to protect the poor from heavy property taxes. Some prominent tax economists are favoring even sales taxes to make the tax system more progressive, by lowering . . . → Read More: The Property Tax is a Progressive Tax One comment - (Comments are closed) Publication Economic Science, Inequality, land value tax, Politics, progressive, Property taxation, Public finance, Tax policy, tax reform, urban development, Urban Economics, welfare economics Commercial-capitalist civilization has progressed in step with people’s success in fending off sales taxes in their various guises. We might begin with The Enlightenment, late 18th Century, with its epicenter in Versailles. At the core were the philosophes; at their core were les économistes, or Physiocrats; and at their core was the . . . → Read More: The Sales Tax: History of a Dumb Idea Comments are closed Essay, Publication Economic History, Land Economics -- General, Public finance, Sales Tax, Tax policy, welfare economics In January 2006 Insights showed how successive administrations in Washington have doctored the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to conceal the real rise in the Cost of Living (COL). Self-defined “mainstream” economists have served as tools, some as active leaders and others as sheep in the herd. For Insights column in Groundswell December 2007 . . . → Read More: The Shrinking Dollar Comments are closed Essay, Publication inflation, Land Economics - Macroeconomics, Macroeconomic stability, Macroeconomics The object of human organization is synergy, combining parts into a whole greater than their sum. Large organizations seek synergy in hierarchy and financial controls. Cities achieve it by bringing independent actors into mutual access so they can cooperate via free contracts and association in the marketplace, in government and society. This paper purports . . . → Read More: The Synergistic City: Its Potentials, Hindrances and Fulfillment Comments are closed Publication Economic History, Land economics -- urban, Land Rent, Property taxation, Tax policy, urban development, Urban Economics The question I am assigned is whether the taxable capacity of land without buildings is up to the job of financing cities, counties, and schools. Will the revenue be enough? The answer is “yes.” 1993. In Patricia Salkin (ed.), Land Value Taxation, Papers from a Conference sponsored by The Government Law Center of Albany . . . → Read More: The Taxable Capacity of Land |