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Wealth and Want | |||||||
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Fairness
Nic Tideman: Applications of Land Value Taxation to Problems of Environmental Protection, Congestion, Efficient Resource Use, Population, and Economic Growth Justifications
of Land Value Taxation
Land value taxation is sometimes justified on the ground that, unlike almost all other sources of public revenue, a tax on land value does not impose an excess burden on an economy. This argument can be found in the writings of the Physiocrats, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and numerous modern writers. It is based on the fact that, with a properly administered tax on land value (unlike other taxes), it is not possible for a person to lower the tax that is due by being unproductive. If people were concerned only with efficiency, this would be a fine reason to use land value taxation. But people are also concerned with issues of justice, or fairness. And so the question arises of whether taxing land values is fair. The fairness of taxing land values is generally defended on the basis of the postulate that natural opportunities are everyone's common heritage; collecting the value of exclusive use of these opportunities and using the proceeds for public purposes is a way of sharing the value of these opportunities while retaining the efficiency of private control of resources. The idea that natural opportunities are everyone's common heritage is often defended with religious language. John Locke said: Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us that men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their sustenance, or revelation, which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah, and his sons, 'tis very clear that God, as King David says, Psal. CXV. xvi. has given the Earth to the children of men, given it to mankind in common. John Locke did not advocate land value taxation. Writing in about 1690, he said that there was so much unclaimed land in America that no one could properly complain about the private appropriation of land in Europe. Writing nearly 200 year later, when it was becoming impossible for people to appropriate good unclaimed land in America, Henry George said:
Fred E. Foldvary — The Ultimate Tax Reform: Public Revenue from Land Rent
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