Doug Herps

A tribute to the integrity of his conclusion (A. Hutchinson 1975 ). If he had had the benefit of the land market information available to me and had used a market rate of 8% to convert the official valuations to a rental equivalent, he could have concluded that the apparent site rent was a little over 50% of total revenues collected in that year. George, however, together with the Physiocrats and Adam Smith, argued that the current market value of land represented only that part of economic rent left in the hands of landholders. The true potential rent of land is this figure plus all other taxation; that is to say, existing taxation diminishes rent and all taxation is ultimately at the expense of rent. If you wish to pursue and test this argument you will find it clearly expounded in Chapter I, Book VI of Progress and Poverty. My estimate of a capital value of $270 billions for Australian land represents 145% of this country's Gross Domestic Product. Deputy Valuer General NSW 1984