Workers Exempt

see also: he who produces, title, right to self, theft, slavery, ability to pay, benefits received, land includes, land includes, land different from capital,

We are so used to taxing income, taxing wages, that it is hard for us to fathom a large-scale tax system that does not rely primarily on taxing wages. But there are few good reasons for taxing wages, and many better alternatives.

Louis Post: Outlines of Louis F. Post's Lectures, with Illustrative Notes and Charts (1894)

I. THE SINGLE TAX DEFINED.

The practical form in which Henry George puts the idea of appropriating economic rent to common use is "To abolish all taxation save that upon land values."

This is now generally known as "The Single Tax."2 Under its operation all classes of workers, whether manufacturers, merchants, bankers, professional men, clerks, mechanics, farmers, farm-hands, or other working classes, would, as such, be wholly exempt. It is only as men own land that they would be taxed, the tax of each being in proportion, not to the area, but to value of his land. And no one would be compelled to pay a higher tax than others if his land were improved or used while theirs was not, nor if his were better improved or better used than theirs.3 The value of its improvements would not be considered in estimating the value of a holding; site value alone would govern.4 If a site rose in the market the tax would proportionately increase; if that fell, the tax would proportionately diminish.

The single tax may be concisely described as a tax upon land alone, in the ratio of value, irrespective of improvements or use. ... read the book