Shifting taxes can solve urban sprawl and leapfrog development. Shifting the property tax off of buildings and onto land values would create a powerful incentive for investment in city and town centers and in adjacent neighborhoods. Taxing sites but not buildings spurs development of the most valuable locations in developed areas. Parking lots give way to buildings. Supplies of apartment and office space increase.
Rental prices moderate.
Replacing most of the existing tax codes with taxes on pollution and other environmental ills would prevent hundreds of premature deaths, safeguard the environment and raise economic output by billions. Accustomed to taxes as they are, and not able to interact powerfully with the complex taxing systems, citizens are ill-equipped to put forward such a comprehensive approach and make it stick. But whether you're conservative, liberal or right in the middle, tax shifting make sense. It gets taxes off our backs and onto the side of people, the economy and the environment. All we really need is for our political leaders to connect their prosperity and quality of life rhetoric with a tax system that works for us and not against us.