homestead exemptions should exist, but property taxes should be our primary focus on tax revenue

your water and bucket analogy has a good point, in that we could be focusing on the most direct source of the revenue, the income of the tax payers. but taxing income doesn't have the added advantage of not disincentivising productivity by taxing labor. and, if a rich person doesn't want to own a lot of land, they don't have to. it is more equitabe in that regard too. people can have more control over their sitautions, with more equitable outcomes to boot. on the sales tax point, you misinterpet me, but i was sloppy. i don't think we should tax sales, but if we do, it should be last. this priority is so that we don't disincentiveize commercial activity. if it was every the case, in the theretical scenario that con suggests, where everyone owns land, so there's nto enough revenue given the homeowners exemptions, then perhaps we should look to the income tax. but this would be assumeing that the more equitable distribution of land occurred to begin with which was one of the highest things we were seeking. """why couldn't it balance the scales between the wealthy and non wealthy just as much as income tax? there is no difference where the revenue comes from..." - Wrong. There is a major difference where the revenue is generated. It's the difference between being taxed on income or property, one of which is purchased with the other."" you simply said i was wrong but didn't really say how it effectively is different, getting revenue from propety or income. all you did was point out that land is gotten by income. ok, sure, but that doesn't tell us anything. if we are getting revenue from property instead of income, we can have redistribution programs just the same as if we taxed income directly. there are jst not as many advantages with taxing income directly, and not taxing property instead. the richest could buy the land if they wanted to, but they would not nearly as much. that is the whole point. you pretty much admit that there's disincentives but then go on to act like it wouldn't change anything. the fact that the richest of the rich might not be impeded doesn't change anything. most people, and most rich people, would be disincentiveized from owning excessive property and thus wouldn't do it. you even seem to suggest as much when you admitted tht it might be possible for everyone to have homeownes exemptions and then cause concern for raising revenue. but now you backtread. you are being inconsistent. all your points that the richest make the most money, and recover from recessions faster, doesn't indicate that we should tax income. those things would be true whether or not we tax income. we're just ensuring a more equitably distribtued property, and the means to get the money from the rich would be possible to with property taxes, so as to ensure some straight redistribution. notable economists have agreed that high property taxes are optimal, of all stipes of economists. milton friedman, and paul krugman and stiglitz and adam smith for instance. when these guys agree on something, we should listen. Milton Friedman stated: "There's a sense in which all taxes are antagonistic to free enterprise " and yet we need taxes. ...So the question is, which are the least bad taxes? In my opinion the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land "Keynesian economist Paul Krugman, agree that land value taxation is the best means of raising public revenue" The Nobelist Joseph Stiglitz writes "Not only was Henry George correct that a tax on land is non-distortionary, but in an equilibrium society ... tax on land raises just enough revenue to finance the (optimally chosen) level of government expenditure." here is smith talking about it. here he's also talking about the only argument i can think of that con might try to plausibly make ground on, is that higher property values would cause rent to rise for tenants. i know con didn't raise this argument, ut i think con does need some better arguments for his position, so i will take that too. we see both his supoort for propety tax, but also the fact that it doesn't cause rent to raise. as far basck as free market began to get really philosophically expanded upon, it was accepted higher property taxes doing a good thing. It was Adam Smith, in his book The Wealth of Nations, who first rigorously analyzed the effects of a land value tax, pointing out how it would not hurt economic activity, and how it would not raise land rents. "Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground. More or less can be got for it according as the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify their fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller expense. In every country the greatest number of rich competitors is in the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest ground-rents are always to be found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no respect be increased by a tax upon ground-rents, they would not probably be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was to be advanced by the inhabitant, or by the owner of the ground, would be of little importance. The more the inhabitant was obliged to pay for the tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent. " Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter 2, Article I: Taxes upon the Rent of Houses