Talk:Land value tax/Archive 1

message: This tax was advocated by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution in 1789. Hamilton writing in the Federalist #36 gives the argument. It was probably known to Franklin and certainly known by Jefferson as ambassadors to France from whence it sprang via Quesnay and Turgot. Jefferson brought Du Pont to this country to promote the idea.  Douglas Boyd, KYMAK agent http://www.geocities.com/douglas36601/pax.html 68.17.111.216 18:16, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Urban Land

message: I thought it might be creative to see if we might open up this good collaborative exercise and bring in the hundred or so members of a discussion group of the first rank (I think I can safely say) that has LVT and value capture (sadly still a null set here]] as its object the Land Café (you can get there by going first to The Commons, then clicking the left menu links, Collaborative Programs/Land etc. I have written a personal note to them today, and we shall see what this new blood might bring in to this important forum It is such an important matter, that I would very much hope that we shall collectively aim at getting it noted as one of the very strong entries in this weird place. ericbritton 09:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand your directions for The Commons. What are we supposed to click on? I don't see "Collaborative Programs/Land". I'm mostly interested in LVT as an urban planning tool. Luciuskwok 19:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry not to have been sufficiently clear. Let me try it again: (1) http://www.ecoplan.org, (2) left menu: Collaborative Programs; then (3) Land/Value Capture; finally (4) Land Cafe. And there if you sort trhough a bit you will see quite a fair level of discourse on LVT et al. (You might also wish to use the Search gizmo for keywords. Hope it helps Luciuskwok. ericbritton 22:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

text:  Here for you and friend Luciuskwok is the latest state of play in our greatly extended Land Cafe program. Your comments and participation are welcome. (Including if you will concerning the way in which we are trying to provide some creaitve synergistic interactions with Wikipedia.) ericbritton 14:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Some new players

message: The sentence starting "An additional argument for LVT is that land values depend heavily on matters beyond the control of the land owner..."  should be more direct and specific.
Suggested change (in italics) follows
An additional argument for LVT is that land values are created mainly by changes that are not the result of the landowner's own enterprise and effort; for example, the creation of new infrastructure, or a rezoning which can dramatically change the value of a piece of land. An LVT provides a way of recouping some of the windfall changes to land values that occur as a result of investment by government, placing less of the burden on taxpayers who don't benefit.
Janosabel 13:23, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good to me. Will you do this? ericbritton 14:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. Janosabel 12:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Background 

message: Let's not just delete this wholesale. It's not vandalism. The contributor made some good points, albeit without using an encyclopaedic style. I have moved the text here so that it isn't lost to view.
:If I can give an Australian perspective. Land taxes are an important part of the Australian and New Zealand taxation system with most local and a substantial amount of state revenue being raised through land taxes. This followed the visit to Australia by Henry George at the end of the 19thC. Australia took up land taxation with zeal on the basis that it is "incentive taxation" (a term used in the US). From a taxation point of view land taxes have a number of advantages over other taxes. These include the fact that land cannot be destroyed, hidden, shipped overseas or lodged in a Swiss bank account. Further, the true taxpayer is always known being the registered proprietor at the Land Titles Office. Therefore, under the land tax system rich people will always have to pay their fair share of taxes. It is made progressive with an increasing rate of tax scale.
:The advantage of land value taxation over improved value taxation is that the fiscal cadastre (the taxation records) are easily and cheaply updated because it is 2 dimensional rather than 3 dimensional. The urban areas in Australia are typically updated every 2 years whereas the cycle for improved values is much longer and therefore, out of date improved values causing distortions are more likely.
:Another advantage is that high land taxes will discourage speculation and landbanking, forcing owners to develop land rather than keeping the land vacant. This helps to keep land prices down. If this is not happening then the land tax is too low.
:States in Australia where land tax is the major system of local taxation are NSW, Queensland and Western Australia. Both South Australia and Victoria allow a composite (and therefore, less satisfactory) system of improved and land value systems).
:Some years ago RICS in the UK in their submission to an inquiry on land taxation addressed the proposal to convert the UK system of rental values (ie an improved value) system to a land value system such as Australia's, by the rather pompous statement that the land value system "has not proved itself" - despite nearly 100 years of land taxation in Australia. I would reverse the argument and state that despite costing about 4-5 times more than a land value system, the improved value system has not proved itself as superior and certainly not to the extent to warrant it's high cost.
:farang
I am sure that the information that it contains can be used to improve the article. -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Australian perspective

message: The article doesn't explain what a two-rate property tax is. Also, in some states, farm land and forest land is also taxed at a lower rate. This is not mentioned, is this an example of two-rate system? KAM 13:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Two-rate systems normally split property value into an unimproved land portion and a portion comprising the property's buildings and improvements. They then tax the value of the unimproved land at one rate and the the value of the buildings and improvements at another. Hence "two-rate" systems. As you can see this is rather different from the examples that you asked about (which are not examples of a two rate system). Your examples are examples of Land Area taxation which is inherently unfair to rural owners owing to the low rate of return on rural land compared to urban land (and unlike Land Value taxation which is fair to all landowners since value is directly related to Rate of Return). Hence the lower rates given to rural landowners in an attempt to even out the taxation burden. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:45, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Two rates

message: Ok, I think I've made some good changes. It still needs a lot of work, particularly with NPOV. I emailed the webmaster of this site, asking for permission to quote their page in the "Claimed advantages" section. Even if we keep most if it, it too is in many places POV. For now, I'm sick of working on this page and will take a break. --Explodicle 19:02, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's good news, Explodicle. I must admit that I thought our article was fairly sympathetic to the LVT concept already. And as a lifelong supporter of the idea I was quite happy about that. Most of the material has been added by proponents rather than detractors. I don't think that the LVT Campaign webmaster would have run into major problems refining what is already here (although he would have needed to use the Neutral Point Of View style which many Wikipedia neophytes find difficult) but I am fairly sure that most of us would welcome his input even if it needed to be reworded a little. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  12/06 Cleanup 

message: Just a quick note on the latest addition.
:Another issue with LVT in large cities is that a pure LVT does not have a provision for open spaces in a densely populated city. Any parkland in a city would have an economic value higher than its usage as a park leading to parks being removed and the city losing out in the process, due to lack of open spaces. Thus, an LVT has to have important exceptions for open spaces to be preserved.
While this might seem reasonable in theory, it's not actually a problem in practice.  The reason is that open space/parkland is almost invariably publically owned and thus the authority levying the tax is generally also the recipient of it. In that situation, the chances of the City council selling a park to avoid the Land Tax (which it would be paying to itself in any case) is probably less than the chance of the City council selling a park in order to reduce its longterm debt. After all even when no Land Tax is involved the city is missing out on the rent which it could raise by building tower blocks on all that lovely open space. Yet somehow it manages to resist the temptation to do so for rent, even for such an extremely rentable property as Central Park. I suspect that it would also resist the temptation to do so for Land Tax. Of course the paragraph is spot on as far as private parks are concerned. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or to put it another way, well kept green spaces keep land values up. So selling it for just an extra acre to tax would be silly.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.253.26 (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Open Spaces

message: The lack of NPOV in this article has a very simple explanation: the more one knows about taxation and LVT, the more difficult it becomes to remain neutral on the subject. To those who understand it fully, implementation of LVT is roughly equivalent to the emancipation of slaves. Does the Wikipedia article on slavery maintain NPOV? Or does it state the fact that slavery is an evil relic of barbarism intolerable to all civilized people? It may take a century or more, but there is little doubt that by comparison with LVT, the future will view our current atrocious taxation systems as effectively nothing but part-time slavery.
How much neutrality is possible to those who have apprehended the fact that private capture and retention of the publicly created economic rent of natural resources is the greatest evil in the history of the world, an evil that has directly or indirectly caused most of the other evils (especially poverty and war), an evil that has inflicted more harm, suffering and injustice on humanity than slavery, communism, fascism and religious intolerance COMBINED, and that continues to inflict a Holocaust worth of harm, suffering, injustice, oppression, torture, robbery, starvation and death on innocent people EVERY YEAR?
In point of fact, all objections to LVT have been comprehensively refuted, save one: that it does exactly what it says it will do, shift the burden of taxation off productive economic activity -- work and capital investment -- and place it squarely on the unjust privilege of charging others for access to what nature provided for free. The unrefuted "objection" to LVT is simply that we are accustomed to the injustice of private landowner privilege, and that many of us -- especially those in positions of wealth, power and privilege -- have come to count on (and yes, greatly to enjoy) being its beneficiaries. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Roy Langston (talk • contribs) 23:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The slavery article does maintain NPOV. For instance, one might say that "slavery is considered morally objectionable by many" is more NPOV than "slavery is the most evil thing there ever was". You have to keep in mind that there are many people who are just interested in a more efficient economy, and don't get quite so worked up about it. --Explodicle 15:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've just read the Slavery and LVT articles in their entirety, and while the slavery article is much more detailed and comprehensive, there are a few passages where the evil of slavery is identified and decried. I do not see the slavery article as has having a perceptibly more NPOV than the LVT article.Roy Langston 07:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Where exactly is this POV content? The word "evil" does not currently appear in the slavery article. If you do think that the article is POV, please identify specific passages and tag the article for improvement appropriately. ALL of our articles are supposed to be NPOV, no matter how strongly you (or almost everyone, in the case of slavery) feel about the issue. Sorry it took me so long to reply. --Explodicle 01:26, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: There is a problem with the things that come under "disadvantages". This is supposed to present the opinions of those who claim disadvantages. It is not supposed to be a place for discrediting those opinions. Imagine if following each of the claimed "advantages", an editor added "This is of course a naive misunderstanding and it wouldn't work in the real world.": this would be rightly recognised as editorial opinion and would be promptly removed. Similarly, "Bates (1973) discredits this argument" (imaginary scholarly argument, but just as bad).
I have removed the following from the section on Herbert J Davenport. I have added bold to show that the author has allowed their own opinions to dominate the discussion. Even where the language is neutral, all of the writing is devoted to showing that Davenport is mistaken.
:However, these claims are highly dubious. Most land tax proponents do not consider fertilization (and other improvements) in the value of land but rather classify it as natural capital. It is also nonsensical to claim that a land value tax would be a tax on the production of farm goods, as the tax would be exactly the same whether any goods were produced on any particular farm or not. Moreover, as land rent is defined as the most users would willingly pay for the advantages of using a particular land site, it is impossible for a tax that only recovers land rent to push useful land out of use (though it may lead to the abandonment of inferior land currently in wasteful use, as more productive land is brought into use instead of being kept idle for speculative gain). Davenport may have been confused on this point by the rare historical examples (such as in the Late Roman Empire) of land taxes that were not based on land value or land rent, that exceeded the land rent, and that consequently reduced the land's value to a negative quantity and drove it out of production.   
:Urban land is somewhat different, since its owners collect rents on site value. Nevertheless, Davenport claimed that any effort to tax such rents would lead owners to economize on the land by building higher buildings and deeper basements than would be economically efficient. This argument contradicts standard economic analysis, by mistakenly conflating the roles of landlords and land users. Land users are willing to pay a premium in order to locate in economically beneficial areas. They pay for that benefit either directly to a private landlord, or by forgoing the income they would earn by selling or renting the parcel. LVT does not change these basic incentives; it improves economic efficiency by increasing market liquidity as well as avoiding the deadweight losses associated with property taxes and other taxes. 
I am no expert on this subject, but I'd like to think I can spot an author's point of view. Please take this as a ground rule: if the author's opinion can be discovered or reasonably guessed by reading the article, then it cannot meet Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Notinasnaid 12:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems reasonable. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:02, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with "claimed disadvantages" 

message: This article is written in a manner which is fairly clearly POV; there's some evidence of this on both sides of the issue, but it's mostly "pro"-biased.  The most notable indicator of this is the "Arguments For" section.  If these things are all objectively true, they needn't be listed in such a manner; if "a better economy" is an outcome, than that can be listed in a description section.
(Of course, I doubt this is a universally-accepted fact, or this tax policy would be implemented everywhere.)  If they're not, the author shouldn't imply otherwise.
Furthermore, many of the arguments are redundant.  Two are identical, claiming a stronger economy as a benefit; one, "more efficient allocation of land," shows up with multiple veneers (reduction of urban sprawl and of inner-city ghettos are both iterations of the same benefit; they can be mentioned separately, but it should be under a common subheading).  
Others don't belong on this page at all, like these:
''
# Fairness. Land (unlike goods and services) has no cost of production. If an ample supply of land of equal desirability were available everywhere, there would be nothing to pay for its use. In reality land acquires a scarcity value owing to the competing needs of the community for living, working and leisure space. Thus the unimproved value of land owes nothing to the individual efforts of the landowner and everything to the community at large. It belongs justly and uniquely to the community. Conversely, the reward for individual effort can belong only to the one who earns it, to spend, save, or give away as he or she may see fit.
# Voluntary. The tax is completely avoidable. Anyone who does not wish to pay it need only rent land in place of owning it''
The 'fairness' argument defies fundamental economic theory, because it disregards the potential benefits (both personal and societal) from fruitful speculation.  In other words, investing in real estate isn't fundamentally distinct (in this regard) from investing in stocks or the futures exchange.
(FYI, there's no mention of this in an "Arguments Against" section, and I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this!)
The "voluntary" argument is just self-evidentially absurd, to the point of facetiousness.  That same "benefit" applies to all taxes: if you don't want to pay income tax, just don't get a job!
Anyways, this needs to be reworked by someone who won't allow his or her opinion to impugn the article's quality (or someone who just doesn't give a damn about the issue).
--Xiaphias (talk) 10:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "voluntary" argument is not so absurd. For instance poll taxes are completely involuntary: if you're alive, you pay. Sales taxes vary in how voluntary they may be: a tax on luxury foods such as caviar is pretty well voluntary whereas a tax on necessities such as bread is pretty well involuntary. Income taxes are involuntary since a person without income eventually becomes a person without savings. And a person without income or savings starves. Hence we must have an income to survive. Hence we must pay income tax. Contrast that with LVT where we do have an easy choice. If I object to paying LVT, I take my money out of real estate and put it into a corporation like Boeing or IBM instead: no starvation (or even noticeable hardship) required. As for "paying through a middleman", the "middleman" will charge you the same amount whether LVT exists or not. So it can't be LVT that he is charging you. It's just the same old rent. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:31, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Not at all -- just because you don't have an income doesn't mean you'll starve.  There's thievery, government welfare, homeless shelters, mooching off relatives...tons of options.  They don't seem very desirable to you, but perhaps forsaking caviar seems equally undesirable to someone else.  Who gets to decide which sacrifices don't really matter? --Xiaphias (talk) 20:11, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Beats me. But I was making a point about how hard the other options were, not how much they mattered or how desirable they were. Personally I find the idea of mooching off relatives quite appealing but it's too hard to get them to agree to it, so I guess I'll just keep on working, <grin>. All I'm saying is that there are degrees of "voluntariness"; it's not just yes or no; sometimes you are presented with a choice where it's 50-50 and sometimes you get an offer-you-can't-refuse. -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

text: *Even though I'm a LVT advocate I support deletion of the "voluntary" argument.  It may or may not be absurd but it surely isn't a strong argument or an important one.   Pm67nz (talk) 22:58, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: POV tag

message: :*Perhaps I'm confused... are you assuming some sort of rent control? I don't see how a landlord could afford not raising rent if taxes go up. --Explodicle (talk) 20:08, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *You are indeed confused, but then so are most people.  Rents are determined by what tenants can pay, not by the expenses of the landlord.  A landlord who had say inherited the land for free and not been taxed in any way would still charge the tenant the going market rental.  Conversely many landlords are right now spending more on mortgage interest payments than they expected, more even than they get in rent, they are taking a loss and yet they don't raise rents because they can't do that if they want to have any tenants at all.  If my explanation isn't clear there's an Adam Smith quote on the Georgism page that says much the same thing, but just about as briefly, and for a modern economist's take on it complete with supply and demand curves look up "elasticity and tax incidence".  Mankiw's economics textbooks include a very good explanation, just keep in mind that we are talking about the rent of land here (not houses, apartments or other buildings which sit on land) and the supply of land is completely inelastic. Pm67nz (talk) 02:12, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *So why don't tenants just move to the cheaper apartments? In my experience landlords have always had to compete for my business. Would you please provide a link with supply and demand curves... if you are right, I'm totally putting this in the article because it shocks me. --Explodicle (talk) 05:24, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Re tenants and/or you choosing cheaper and/or better appartments: of course, but I don't see how that is a reply to what I wrote above.  Re supply and demand curves: forget about hunting down Mankiw's textbook, wikipedia has a good Tax incidence page with S/D diagrams.  LVT is an extreme case of the "Inelastic supply, elastic demand" case described there.  Pm67nz (talk) 06:26, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Thanks! I'll give it a read when I get the chance. --Explodicle (talk) 13:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *(*Smacks forehead*) Ok, now I don't see how I failed to understand that. :-P ...I'll get to work on on an SVG diagram, since the one on the tax incidence article isn't a completely inelastic supply. --Explodicle (talk) 17:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * If you want to get completely carried away with the S/D diagram(s) a bit of shading can show how the inelasticity also prevents the tax from having any deadweight loss (ie: it doesn't discourage the use of land).  There is an example of such a diagram at  but I haven't found one on wikipedia (the closest is on Monopoly, which is similar but not about taxes), so if you want to add or improve the diagrams on the Tax or Tax incidence pages too...  Pm67nz (talk) 22:58, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Sounds good. Step one: I must learn how to make SVG files. :-) --Explodicle (talk) 04:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

text: *So why don't tenants just move to the cheaper apartments?  --- Rent is determined by whatever the landlord can get away with charging, not what a specific individual can pay. Rents absorb most of the profit that can be made by living in a prime location versus living in the middle of nowhere. See Law of Rent  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.253.26 (talk) 02:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Can Land Value Tax be passed onto leaseholders (aka renters)

message: I took out this section and have placed it here, because I really don't understand why it would come under Implementation.
: "The original idea was based on a study of the economic effects of the Biblical Tithe,
:* 
:* 
:* 
* i.e., the payment of 10% of the product of land use in crops and cattle. LVT would extend this principle to the value of land use in building facilities for human habitation. How much greater is the value of land in a city compared to the country? Therefore the larger revenue would be derived from urbanized land use. The first people to lose would be those who hold land out of production only to force up the price for resale - which they are currently able to do where the assessment of land is far below its market value shifting the tax burden mainly to the home or other building owner; LVT would reverse and equalize this burden so that all citizens would pay a tax based on the value of land only. The land tax would encourage the most productive use of land, i.e., its highest and best use. 
* 
*
70.22.67.251 (talk) 21:41, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Urban land (2)

message: ===Loss of asset value===
Land value is the discounted present value of expected future after-tax rents; so LVT, by increasing the taxation of those rents, would reduce the value of all real estate owners' holdings. A rapid reduction of real estate values could have profoundly negative effects on banks and other financial institutions whose asset portfolios are dominated by real estate mortgage debt, and could thus threaten the soundness of the whole financial system. Rapid introduction of LVT must therefore be considered a somewhat irresponsible approach*, and most LVT advocates consequently favor a long phase-in process lasting at least a decade, and potentially much longer. However, if by the power to regulate commerce among the several States delegated to Congress by We the People, commercial use of the land supply were regulated by the Federal Reserve Bank; and if by the power of eminant domain reserved to the States the LVT tax-rate  were regulated by the State Banking system, this problem should be resolved.
If land's value were reduced to zero or near zero by recovering effectively all its rent, as LVT economists* say is possible, total privately held asset value could decline by as much as 1/4 or even more, a massive reduction of private sector wealth; however, if a more equitable distribution of land and wealth is the result it could be justified and accepted in the long-run.
DAB (talk) 16:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Claimed disadvantages

message: Land value is the discounted present value of expected future after-tax rents; so LVT, by increasing the taxation of those rents, would reduce the value of all real estate owners' holdings. A rapid reduction of real estate values could have profoundly negative effects on banks and other financial institutions whose asset portfolios are dominated by real estate mortgage debt, and could thus threaten the soundness of the whole financial system. Rapid introduction of LVT must therefore be considered a somewhat irresponsible approach*, and most LVT advocates consequently favor a long phase-in process lasting at least a decade, and potentially much longer. However, if by the power to regulate commerce among the several States delegated to Congress by We the People, commercial use of the land supply were regulated by the Federal Reserve Bank; and if by the power of eminant domain reserved to the States the LVT tax-rate  were regulated by the State Banking system, this problem should be resolved.
If land's value were reduced to zero or near zero by recovering effectively all its rent, as LVT economists* say is possible, total privately held asset value could decline by as much as 1/4 or even more, a massive reduction of private sector wealth; however, if a more equitable distribution of land and wealth is the result it could be justified and accepted in the long-run.
DAB (talk) 16:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Loss of asset value