Britain: Land Tax Historical.

One of the innovative schemes of the British government to increase revenue. Introduced in 1692, in the reign of William III and Mary, and finally abolished in 1963. Administered at the local level, and based on a tax quota for each parish which did not vary...Between 1772 and 1909 the rate remained at 4s. in the £. In 1798 properties valued at under 20s. per year were officially exempted from paying land tax. Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies

Les Blake

Diggers resented being treated as mere rent-producers without representation...Diggers could not modify laws in their favour; they could not unlock lands which would enable them to have freeholders’ voting rights...From a population of 83,627 in 1851, the colony increased its numbers to 148,627 by December next year. A man paid more in one year to fossick in his tiny claim for gold than a squatter paid to lease vast tracts of the country for his sheep and cattle...And who imposed the licence fee? The squatter-dominated Legislative Council, the only official form of government that the new colony had... Black told Hotham that, if a land sale was held, the best allotments were so big that few diggers could afford to buy them; they had to be satisfied with ‘smaller slices’ of the poorer land while squatters kept great tracts of land locked up simply by paying a ludicrously low annual licence. Peter Lalor The Man From Eureka

Thomas Nulty

James Fintan Lalor- brother of Peter Lalor of Eureka Stockade fame expressed the view that land rent should be paid to Government to be spent on the people’s behalf. Back To The Land p.9

Colin Clark

They correctly predicted the effect of Britain's entry would be to relegate this country to a position on the periphery where it would be likely to decline in importance relative to the other countries of Europe. They drew circles on maps to indicate the bands of economic growth potential, widening out from the small area of manufacturing high potential concentrated within the Rhine Valley of Western Germany, eastern Belgium, and south-east Netherlands....will migrate to the centre, to the detriment of the countries on the periphery. Industrial Location and Economic Potential in Western Europe Vol.3 pp197-212

John Shattuck

During the course of the 20th century, 175 million civilians were murdered by their own governments -- four times the total number of soldiers killed in all the century's international wars combined. "The souls of this monstrous pile of dead have created," in the words of noted genocide scholar R. J. Rummel, "a new land, a new nation, among us." This land of genocide and political murder would rank sixth in population among the nations of the world by the end of "the bloodiest century in history." The Globe 2/4/2004

Alan J Hunt

The problem with differential rating in an uncontrolled manner is that it seriously detracts from the valuation base, pointed out on 4/11/77. The usefulness of the ability-to-pay criteria is restricted on several grounds. It is extremely difficult to measure. Income data is insufficient to determine ability-to-pay, and net wealth data is not available. Committee of Inquiry into Rural Rating Hon. A.J Hunt L.G. Minister 1978

Leo Hawkins

Leo Hawkins The Layfield Report on Local Government Finance in England, published in 1976, identified two main causes for the rate revolt in that country. These were ignorance of the functioning of the rating system amongst ratepayers, and a widespread feeling that it is an inequitable tax. Last year (1984) the taxpayer’s revolt which spread across the U.S.A. from California also focused on taxes on property. Forward, Local Government Rates in Victoria Lecturer in Local Government Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Brian P Haratsis

Because the Rating System is rarely studied and even less rarely understood, political rating decisions are often illogical. Unfortunately the system perpetuates itself as the groups affected by illogical political decisions are unable to exercise their democratic right because they are either more ignorant of the system than the legislators or numerically and financially too weak to muster sufficient support to change the system. Differential rates used correctly may also be developed as a planning tool in discouraging certain types of development. It must be remembered however, that the cost of using differential rating to a greater extent may be higher. Commentary on the Jarvis-Gann CIV proposal, although proponents claim the average property taxation would be reduced by 64 per cent and a ceiling rise of 2 per cent in the market value of a home for tax purposes would be the desirable result, the undesired side effect is that it destroys a system of rating based on valuation. If this is what the community wishes, then it should be explicitly recognised, not lost in a heap of good intentions. Capital Improved Value as the name suggests this valuation includes all improvements to land and buildings. capital Improved Value is the market value of the whole property irrespective of encumbrances such as life tenants, uneconomic rents etc. Unfortunately C.I.V. is an unsatisfactory valuation base as it does not account for varying rates of return to similarly valued properties, for example, a homeowner does not expect a return, or rent, on his property as does an investment flat owner, shop owner, or factory owner even though similarly valued properties may use differing amounts of municipal services. p14 ..In general terms S.V. tends to favour those groups with a large expenditure on improvements to the land value (e.g. industry, investment flats and large house owners). p40 Local Government Rates in Victoria Hargreen Publishing Co.

Mr Bird

The land value base can be and is being made quite ineffective by local government bodies using differential rating and minimum rates...Some councils are using or seeking to use their differential rating powers to invert or reverse the effect of a general revaluation of land in their rating areas. This approach is designed to maintain and preserve the prevailing distribution of the rate burden between different classes of land. Such an approach completely negates the need for and purpose and land value rating system. Valuer General NSW Annual Report 1976 p.6

C.Lowell Harriss

Land deserves a prominent place in a tax system for reasons articulated long before tax evasion became a recognised problem...land is a productive resource whose total quantity does not depend upon the taxes imposed. The payment made for use does not go to reward the producer (creator) of the resources as will our payments for labour and man-made capital. Most of the value of land depends upon past and present community developments, not upon the efforts of past and present owners (as distinguished from buildings). Other reasons for using land as a tax base cumulate into an impressive total-to which one adds the merits of uniqueness among revenue sources as evasion-proof. President of National Tax Association Professor of Economics Columbia University August 1993

Gerald Dusseldorp

Mr. Dusseldorp’s evidence was strongly in favour of rating on the site value rather than the value of improvements. (11535) Q: Do you think that there would be any shortage of sites and buildings available for re-development under an annual value rating system as compared with an unimproved value rating system? A: I think that the tendency would be that....NAV would definitely pay an owner who is in no hurry to pay the rates and taxes without improving it, because the chance is that he would recover that plus, when the market is right, so that he can ride the “booms” and the “troughs.” If he misses one boom period he can just sit it out and wait for the next one and he is bound to recover more than he has paid out during the time, plus the fact that what he collects is tax free, yet his rates and taxes will be deductible during that period from any income that he might derive from other sources.” N.S.W. Royal Commission on Local Government Finance 1967 Chairman Lendlease

Australian National Priorities Review Committee

1992 Report: Ground Rent currently pays only 5% of taxes.

Perry Prentice

Land ownership is the most highly concentrated form of wealth. In Caifornia, one big company owns more millions of acres of land than all the home sites in the state! Nationwide, 568 big companies own 301,700,000 acres of land 13% of our total land area and nearly 22% of all privately owned land. Commeration Address past Vice President, Time, Inc

William Vickery

It guarantees that no one dispossesses fellow citizens by obtaining a disproportionate share of what nature provides for humanity. President American Economics Association,

Robert Solow

“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.”

Herbert Simon

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 taxes - the initiatives open to the City (of Pittsburgh). It is the use and occupancy of property that creates the need for the 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 city residents will be about twice as great with wage tax increase than with a land tax increase. Pure land rent is in the nature of a ‘surplus’ which can be taxed heavily without distorting production incentives or efficiency. A land value tax can be called ‘the useful tax on measured land surplus.

Herbert Spence

Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land. For if one portion of the earth's surface may justly become the possession of an individual, and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit, as a thing to which he has an exclusive right, then other portions of the earth's surface may be so held; and eventually the whole of the earth's surface may be so held' and our planet mayt thus lapse altogether into private hands. Observe now the dilemma to which this leads. Supposing the entire habitable globe to be so inclosed, it follows that if the landowners have a valid right toits surface, all who are not landowners have not right at all to its surface. Hence, such can exist on the earth by suffferance only. They are all tresspassers...it is manifest, that an exclusive possession of the soil necessitates an infringement of the law of equal freedom. for, men who cannot "live and move and have their being" without the leave of others, cannot be equally free with those others. Social Statistics,1851-The Right To Land Ch 9

Terry Dwyer

In 1999 land-based revenues are indeed sufficient to allow total abolition of company and personal tax. At the current rate of growth, in 20 years time resource rents will be able to replace taxation at all levels of government. The Taxable Capacity of Australian Land and Resources p.40

Bryan Kavanagh

Of Australia's $180 billion in resource rents in 2002 only $19.2 billion was collected for public purposes, leaving $160.8 billion to be capitalised into higher land and resource prices. Whereas the incomes of labour and capital have increased only 1.58 times in real terns since 1972, taxation has grown 3.1 times. The Case For a Federal Charges on Land Values

E.R.A. Seligman

The incidence of the ground tax, in other words, is on the landlord. He has no means of shifting it; for, if the tax were to be suddenly abolished, he would nevertheless be able to extort the same rent, since the ground rent is fixed solely by the demand of the occupiers. The tax simply diminishes his profits. Incidence of Taxation, pages 244-245.

Bruce Willis

Armageddon (Movie). We don't want to ever pay tax again. Ever!

William D.Nordhaus

The striking result is that a tax on rent will lead to no distortions or economic inefficiencies. Why not? Because a tax on pure economic rent does not change anyone's economic behavior. Demanders are unaffected because their price is unchanged. The behavior of suppliers is unaffected because the supply of land is fixed and cannot react. Hence, the economy operates after the tax exactly as it did before the tax--with no distortions or inefficiencies arising as a result of the land tax. Economics, 16th ed., p. 250

Paul Samuelson

The striking result is that a tax on rent will lead to no distortions or economic inefficiencies. Why not? Because a tax on pure economic rent does not change anyone's economic behavior. Demanders are unaffected because their price is unchanged. The behavior of suppliers is unaffected because the supply of land is fixed and cannot react. Hence, the economy operates after the tax exactly as it did before the tax--with no distortions or inefficiencies arising as a result of the land tax. Economics, 16th ed., p. 250

Henry George (1839-1897)

For justice to be done between men it is not necessary for the State to take the land; it is only necessary to take its rent. Our primary social adjustment is a denial of justice. In allowing one man to own the land on which and from which other men must live, we have made them his bondsmen in a degree which increases as material progress goes on. A tax on land values is of all taxes that which best fulfils every requirement of a perfect tax. As land cannot be hidden or carried off, a tax on land values can be assessed with more certainty and can be collected with greater ease and less expense than any other tax, while it does not in the slightest degree check production or lessen its incentive. It is, in fact, a tax only in form, being in nature a rent - a taking for the use of the community of a value that arises not from individual exertion but from the growth of the community. For it is not anything that the individual owner or user does that gives value to land. The value that he creates is a value that attaches to improvements. This, being the the result of individual exertion, properly belongs to the individual, and cannot be taxed without lessening the incentive to production. But the value that attaches to land itself is a value arising from the growth of the community and increasing with social growth. It therefore properly belongs to the community, and can be taken to the last penny without in the slightest degree lessening the incentive to production. (Introduction to Protection or Free Trade) -- The way taxes raise prices is by increasing the cost of production and checking supply. But land is not a thing of human production, and taxes upon rent cannot check supply. Therefore, though a tax upon rent compels owners to pay more, it gives them no power to obtain more for the use of their land, as it in no way tends to reduce the supply of land. On the contrary, by compelling those who hold land for speculation to sell or let for what they can get, a tax on land values tends to increase the competition between owners, and thus to reduce the price of land. Progress and Poverty, Book 8, Chapter 3.

David Ricardo

A tax on rent would affect rent only: it would fall only on landlords, and could not be shifted. The landlord could not raise the rent, because he would have unaltered the difference between the produce obtained from the least productive land in cultivation and that obtained from land of every other quality. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Chapter 10, Sect 62.

Thorold Rogers

The power of transferring a tax from the person who actually pays it to some other person varies with the object taxed. A tax on rents cannot be transferred. A tax on commodities is always transferred to the consumer. - Thorold Rogers, Political Economy, 2nd edition, Chapter 21, page 285.

Agriculture subsidies do NOT save small family farms and Congress knows it:

Instead of keeping farmers on the land, these huge government payments to only the largest, most productive farms are forcing many small farmers out of business. Farm payments are based on production levels, so the bigger the farm, the bigger the government check. Large corporate operations are able to plant more crops, so they get the biggest slice of the subsidy pie. These large farms then turn around and use their outsized government checks to buy up even more farm land. Unable to compete, small farmers are left with no choice but to sell their land to the very operations that are putting them out of business. http://www.progress.org/2005/tcs176.htm

UN discovers property rights

Washington Times by Alejandro Chafuen "Even the United Nations on occasion does something right. So it's a shame the media and the public, understandably fixated at the time on Hurricane Katrina's impact on the U.S. Gulf Coast, missed it. The 'it' was the mid-September announcement that the United Nations was establishing a new commission that will focus on the legal hurdles people in the underdeveloped world face as they try to work their way out of poverty. Institutions like the United Nations typically create commissions as a substitute for actually doing something about a problem. Thanks to its leadership -- former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto -- the new 'High Level Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor' might actually accomplish some good." http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20051101-084856-5025r.htm