Plato (427-347BC)

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust man less on the same amount of income.

Clarence Darrow, US lawyer:

Henry George was one of the real prophets of the world; one of the seers of the world... His was a wonderful mind; he saw a question from every side. The "single tax" is so simple, so fundamental, and so easy to carry into effect that I have no doubt that it will be about the last land reform the world will ever get. People in this world are not often logical.

Herbert Simon, (1978):

Assuming that a tax increase is necessary, it is clearly preferable to impose the additional cost on land by increasing the land tax, rather than to increase the wage tax the two alternatives open to the City (of Pittsburgh). It is the use and occupancy of property that creates the need for municipal services that appear as the largest item in the budget fire and police protection, waste removal, and public works. The average increase in tax bills of the city residents will be about twice as great with wage tax increase than with a land tax increase.

Henry Ford 1863-1947

We ought to tax all idle land the way Henry George said - tax it heavily so that its owners would have to make it productive.

Open letter to President Mikhail Gorbachev

On the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States:-“A public revenue system should strive to collect as much of the rent of land as possible. The component of land value that arises from community growth and provision of services is the most sensible source of revenue for financing public services that raise the rental value of surrounding land 30 Leading USA Economist Signatories 1990 President, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The movement of the Soviet Union to a market economy will greatly enhance the prosperity of your citizens. Your economists have learned much from the experience of nations with economies based in varying degrees on free markets. Your plans for freely convertible currency, free trade, and enterprises undertaken and managed by individuals who receive the profit or bear the losses that result from their decisions are all highly commendable. But there is a danger that you will adopt features of our economies that keep us from being as prosperous as we might be. In particular, there is a danger that you may follow us in allowing most of the rent of land to be collected privately. It is important that the rent of land be retained as a source of government revenue. While the governments of developed nations with market economies collect some of the rent of land in taxes, they do not collect nearly as much as they could, and they therefore make unnecessary great use of taxes that impede their economies-taxes on such things as incomes, sales and the values of capital. Social collection of the rent of land and natural resources serves three purposes. First, it guarantees that no one dispossesses fellow citizens by obtaining a disproportionate share of what nature provides for humanity. Second, it provides revenue with which governments can pay for socially valuable activities without discouraging capital formation or work effort, or interfering in other ways with the efficient allocation or resources. Third, the resulting revenue permits utility and other services that have marked economies of scale or density to be priced at levels conducive to their efficient use. The rental value of land arises from three sources. The first is the inherent natural productivity of land, combined with the fact that land is limited. The second source of land value is the growth of communities; the third is the provision of public services. All citizens have equal claims on the component of land value that arises from nature. The component of land value that arises from community growth and provision of services is the most sensible source of revenue for financing public services that raise the rental value of surrounding land. These services include roads, urban transit networks, parks, and public utility networks for such services as electricity, telephones, water and sewers. A public revenue system should strive to collect as much of the rent of land as possible, allocating the part of rent derived from nature to all citizens equally, and the part derived from public services to the governmental units that provide those services. When governments collect the increase in land value that results from the provision of services, they are able to offer services at prices that represent the marginal social cost of these services, promoting efficient use of the services and enhancing the rental value of the land where the services are available. Government agencies that use land should be charged the same rentals as others for the land they use, or services will not be adequately financed and agencies will not have adequate incentive or guidance for economising on their use of land. Some economists might be tempted to suggest that the rent can be collected publicly simply by selling land outright at auction. There are a number of reasons why this is not a good idea. First, there is so much land to be turned over to private management that any effort to dispose of all of it in a short period would result in an extreme depression in prices offered. Second, some persons who could make excellent use of land would be unable to raise money for the purchase price. Collecting rent annually provides access to land for persons with limited access to credit. Third, subsequent resale of land would enable speculators to make large profits unrelated to any productive services they offer, resulting in needless inequity and dissatisfaction. Fourth, concern about future political conditions would tend to depress offers. Collecting rent annually permits the citizens of future years to capture the benefits of good future public policies. Fifth, because investors tend to be averse to risk, general uncertainty about the future will tend to depress offers. This risk aversion is sidestepped by allowing future rental payments to be determined by future conditions. Finally, the future rent of land can more justly be claimed by future generations than by today’s citizens. Requiring annual payments from the users of land allows each year’s population to claim that year’s rent. While the proceeds of sales could be invested for the benefit of future generations, not collecting the money in advance guarantees the heritage of the future against political excesses. A balance should be kept between allowing the managers of property to retain value derived from their own efforts to maintain and improve property, and securing for public use the naturally inherent and socially created value of land. Users of land should not be allowed to acquire rights of indefinite duration for single payments. For efficiency, for adequate revenue and for justice, every user of land should be required to make an annual payment to the local government, equal to the current rental value of the land that he or she prevents others from using. Signed Nicolaus Tideman, Professor of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. William Vickery, President for 1992, American Economic Association. Mason Gafney, Professor of Economics, University of California, . Lowell Harris,Professor Emeritus of Economics Columbia University. Jacques Thisse, Professor of Economics, Centre for Operational Research and Econometrics, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium Charles Goetz, Joseph M. Hartfield Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law. Gene Wunerlich, Senior Agricultural Economist, Department of Agriculture Daniel R. Fusfeld, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Michigan. Carl Kaysen, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Elizabeth Clayton, Professor of Economics, University of Missouri at St. Louis. Robert Dorfman, Professor Emeritu s of Political Economy, Harvard University. Tibor Scitossky, Emeritus Eberle Professor of Economics, Stanford University. Susan Rose-Ackerman, Eli Professor of Law and Political Economy. Yale Law School. James Tobin*, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Economics, Yale University Richard Musgrave, Professor Emeritus of Political Economy, Harvard University Franco Modigliani*, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Warren J. Samuals, Professor of Economics, Michigan State University Guy Orcutt,Professor Emeritus of Economics, Yale University Eugine Smolenski, Dean of the School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkly Oliver Oldman, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University. Zvi Griliches, Professor of Economics Harvard University William Baumol,Professor of Economics Princeton, University Gustav Ranis,Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics, Yale University John Helliwell, Professor Economics University of British Columbia Giulio Pontecorvo, Professor of Economics and Banking, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University. Robert Solow*, Institute Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Harvey Levin, Augustus B. Weller, Professor of Economics, Hofstra University

Mayor’s Special Committee on Housing in New York.

“The seemingly unstoppable spread of slums has confronted the great cities of the nation with chronic financial crises... The $2 billion public housing program has not made any appreciable dent in the number of slum dwellings... No amount of code enforcement until and unless the profit is taken out of slums by taxation. Architectural Forum, November, 1965

The Profitable Slums

...these tax policies make slums the most profitable of all housing investments; they often make it more profitable to let property decay than to keep it up or improve it; they often make it more profitable to misuse or under-use land than to put land to its optimum use; they give speculation in vacant land such preferential tax treatment that they set apart from the market action of supply and demand. ..ours is a tax-activated, tax-accelerated, tax-directed, tax-dominated economy. Every business decision has to be checked against its tax consequences; and when property owners check the tax consequences of using land better versus using land worse, or spending money for improvements versus letting properties decay, they find, too often, that our tax system penalises what is socially desirable and susidizes what is socially undesirable. ...here is the two-fold way our tax system harness the profit motive backwards in the building industry: The first way is that our system taxes the value of unimproved or under improved land so lightly that land owners are under no pressure to sell until they are offered many times what their land is worth; and so lightly that there is no tax restraint on its price. So the price of our land- which reflects the capitalised difference between the rent the land can be expected to earn and the taxes it must expect to pay has soared clear through the roof. The home builders have voted three to one that this land price inflation is their number one problem in trying to meet this country’s need for better housing. The second way our tax system operates against our best interests ins the manner in which it taxes improvements. Our system taxes improvements so heavily that it makes slums the most profitable of all real estate investments. And so our slums are still spreading faster than urban redevelopment can clear them out. Architectural Forum, November, 1965

The Use of Land in Cities

Charles Abrams Scientific America September 1965. ...This is strictly free-enterprise, profit-motive tool, so perhaps I had better start off by loudly affirming my personal faith in free enterprise and the profit motive. By and large don’t think there can be any substitute for free enterprise and the profit motive when it comes to satisfying a multiplicity of similar but not identical human needs. And, specifically there can be no substitute for free enterprise in meeting a problem as unbelievably complicated as the problem of urban development. When we find a notorious example where free enterprise and the profit motive have failed to meet a complex human need, I believe very strongly that-before we decide to ask the Government to step in and use tax dollars to do the job- we should first try to find out why private enterprise failed in this particular case and see if we cannot eliminate the cause of its failure. Comment So when governments subsidize the particular ownership of one site by granting differential charges, exemptions, minimum rates to others, the effect of which is to change the behavior of the whole rate paying community in ways. That they do not monitor.

James Tobin, (1981):

I think in principle it's a good idea to tax unimproved land, and particularly capital gains (windfalls) on it. Theory says we should try to tax items with zero or low elasticity, and those include sites.

Man’s Relation To the Land

A statement of principles signed by some 75 of America’s Catholic, Protestant and Jewish leaders, we find the following: “All human beings possess a direct natural right to have access to created natural resources...The land is God’s greatest gift to mankind...Land is a very special kind of property...The land is not to be a source of benefit to a favoured few...The worker on the land and his family possess the first right to the fruits of their toil...Reform the system of taxing land and improvements so as to facilitate access to natural resources, security of tenure and proper land use...” Among the top 20 Catholic leaders who signed this declaration were: Msgr. Rev. E. V. O’Hara, D.D., Bishop of Kansas City, Founder of National Catholic Rural Life Conference; Rt. Rev. Professor W.J. McDonald, Catholic University of America; Professor W.J. McDonald. Catholic University of America; Rev. L.R. Ward, C.S.C.., Notre Dame University; Dr. T.J. Arcemaux, South Western Louisiana Institute; Rev.J.C. Rawe, S.J., Author & Teacher, Ridge, Maryland; Rev. M.E. Schirber, O.S.B., Dean, St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota; Edward Skillin, Jr. Editor “Commonweal”; Rev. J. La Farge, S.J., Editor, “America”; Most Rev.W.A. Griffin, D.D., Bishop of Trenton; Most Rev.W.T. Mulloy, D.D., Bishop of Covington; Most Rev. C.D. White, D.D., Bishop of Spokane; Very Rev. H. Lerschen, Regional Director of Rural Life, Rayne, Louisiana; Rt Rev Msgr.J. O’Grady, National Conference of Catholic Charities; Rev. G.C.Higgins, National Catholic Welfare Conference; Rev. P.T. Quinlan, Regional Director of Rural Life, Brookfield Centre, Connecticut; Rev. A.J. Adams, S.J.; Rev. C. Phillips, St. Mary’s Church, Oakland, California;Rev. J.V. Urbain, Pastor, Millville, Ohio. Journal Progress Dec 1959-Jan 1960