Collect What Percent?

Fred E. Foldvary — The Ultimate Tax Reform: Public Revenue from Land Rent

Land value taxation taps the geo-rent. Like today’s real property tax, a land value tax would have some tax rate that would tap some percentage of the land value or rent. I suggest 80 percent of the geo-rent be used for public revenue. The landowner would pay it from the rental he collects from the tenant, or if owner-occupied, from the implicit rental value he obtains from the site. The 80 percent rate would leave some of the land rent with the landowner to have a margin for assessment error and also to maintain a positive price for the land to facilitate its sale. ...

... The amount of economic rent which is taken by the community for public purposes is not a tax paid by the land-holder, but whatever amount of such rent is left in his hands is a gift to him by the community, or else is the compensation which the community allows him for acting as its agent and collector in the matter of economic rent. ... read the whole document

Charles T. Root — Not a Single Tax! (1925)

Again, while it must be firmly insisted that the economic rent is the rightful property of the community and not of the landowner, the community would probably never take it all. Communal ownership of land is not desirable, even if it were practicable. Individual ownership and management are best, and it is not at all improper for the community to allow the owner something for caring for the land to which he holds title, and for collecting and transmitting to the treasury the economic rent.

But — and right here is one of the prime advantages of the abolition of taxation — Mr. Rhinelastor, in order to get satisfactory return from his land, must improve it. Unless he is satisfied with a small income from it, to wit, the proportion of the economic rent which the community chooses to leave in his hands, he must put upon his land the best building the location will warrant. The rents of this building will be his in their entirety, not one dollar of them being taken from him by taxation. If he is not prepared or not willing to do this he would probably find it more profitable, before he leaves the country, to sell the land to some one of the many persons who are eager to build upon it. It will always be salable, although not by any means at present figures. ... read the whole article