Editing Land value tax (section)

==History==

===Pre-modern===
The philosophies and concepts underpinning land value taxation were discussed in ancient times, stemming from taxes on [[crop yield]]. For example, [[Rishi]]s of ancient India claimed that land should be held in common, and that unfarmed land should produce the same tax as productive land. "The earth ...is common to all beings enjoying the fruit of their own labour; it belongs...to all alike"; therefore, "there should be left some for everyone". [[Apastamba]] said "If any person holding land does not exert himself and hence bears no produce, he shall, if rich, be made to pay what ought to have been produced".<ref>{{cite book|title=Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, Volume 33|date=2012|publisher=Manchester Literary Club|isbn=978-1-176-12707-4|page=503|url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=h9wKAAAAYAAJ|page=503}}|access-date=25 May 2015}}</ref>

[[Mencius]]<ref>{{Cite book|url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=Rcn-ugEACAAJ}}|title=The Story of Civilization, Volume 1: The Ancient World|isbn=978-1-5051-0566-7|language=en|page=684|first1=Will |last1=Durant |author-link1=Will Durant|first2=Ariel |last2=Durant|author-link2= Ariel =Durant|publisher=Simon and Schuster |location=New York|year= 1942 }}</ref> was a Chinese philosopher (around 300 BCE) who advocated for the elimination of taxes and tariffs, to be replaced by the public collection of urban land rent: "In the market-places, charge land-rent, but don't tax the goods."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Muller|first1=Charles|title=Mencius (Selections)|url=http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/mencius.html|access-date=25 May 2015}}</ref>

During the Middle Ages, in the West, the first regular and permanent land tax system was based on a unit of land known as the [[Hide (unit)|hide]]. The hide was originally the amount of land sufficient to support a household. It later became subject to a land tax known as "geld".<ref name=lapidge238>{{cite book|first1=Michael |last1=Lapidge|first2=Malcolm |last2=Godden|first3=Simon |last3=Keynes|title=Anglo-Saxon England|url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=k6kSRKibqagC}}|date=4 March 1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-62243-1}}</ref>

===Physiocrats===
[[File:Anne Robert Jacques Turgot.jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot]], a leading physiocrat]]
The [[physiocrat]]s were a group of [[economist]]s who believed that the wealth of nations was derived solely from the value of land [[agriculture]] or [[land development]]. Before the [[Industrial Revolution]], this was approximately correct. Physiocracy is one of the "early modern" [[schools of economics]]. Physiocrats called for the abolition of all existing taxes, completely [[free trade]] and a [[single tax]] on land.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/physioc.htm |access-date=18 March 2009 |publisher=The History of Economic Thought Website |last=Fonseca |first=Gonçalo L |title=The Physiocrats |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227181713/http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/physioc.htm |archive-date=27 February 2009 }}</ref> They did not distinguish between the intrinsic value of land and ground rent.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/fraenckel-axel_physiocrats-and-henry-george.html |first=Axel |last=Fraenckel |title=The Physiocrats and Henry George |access-date=10 July 2008 |work=4th International Conference of the International Union for Land Value Taxation and Free Trade |publisher=The School of Cooperative Individualism |year=1929 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906195744/http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/fraenckel-axel_physiocrats-and-henry-george.html |archive-date=6 September 2008 }}</ref> Their theories originated in [[France]] and were most popular during the second half of the 18th century. The movement was particularly dominated by [[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot]] (1727–1781) and [[François Quesnay]] (1694–1774).<ref>{{Citation|last=Steiner|first=Philippe|chapter=Physiocracy and French Pre-classical Political Economy|chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470999059.ch5|pages=61–77|place=Malden, MA, USA|publisher=Blackwell Publishing Ltd|access-date=28 December 2021|year=2003 |editor-last1=Biddle |editor-first1=Jeff E |editor-last2=Davis |editor-first2=Jon B |editor-last3=Samuels |editor-first3=Warren J.|title=A Companion to the History of Economic Thought|doi=10.1002/9780470999059.ch5|isbn=9780470999059}}</ref> It influenced contemporary statesmen, such as [[Charles Alexandre de Calonne]]. The physiocrats were highly influential in the [[Land value tax in the United States#History|early history of land value taxation in the United States]].

===Radical Movement===
A participant in the [[Radicalism (historical)|Radical Movement]], [[Thomas Paine]] contended in his ''[[Agrarian Justice]]'' pamphlet that all citizens should be paid 15 [[Pound sterling|pounds]] at age 21 "as a compensation in part for the loss of his or her natural inheritance by the introduction of the system of landed property." "Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.constitution.org/tp/agjustice.htm|access-date=23 December 2012|publisher=Constitution Society|last=Paine|first=Thomas|title=Agrarian Justice}}</ref> This proposal was the origin of the [[citizen's dividend]] advocated by [[Geolibertarianism]]. [[Thomas Spence]] advocated a similar proposal except that the land rent would be distributed equally each year regardless of age.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://thomas-spence-society.co.uk/4.html |access-date=23 December 2012 |publisher=The Thomas Spence Society |last=Spence |first=Thomas |title=The Rights of Infants |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130321041404/http://thomas-spence-society.co.uk/4.html |archive-date=21 March 2013 }}</ref>

===Classical economists===

Adam Smith, in his 1776 book ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'', 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 contract rents.

{{Blockquote
|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, [[s:The Wealth of Nations/Book V/Chapter 2|Book V, Chapter 2]], Article I: Taxes upon the Rent of Houses
}}

=== Henry George ===
[[File:Henry George.jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[Henry George]] in 1865]]
{{Main|Henry George|Georgism}}

[[Henry George]] (2 September 1839 – 29 October 1897) was perhaps the most famous advocate of recovering land rents for public purposes. A journalist, politician, and [[political economist]], he advocated a "[[single tax]]" on land that would eliminate the need for all other taxes. George first articulated the proposal in ''Our Land and Land Policy'' (1871).<ref>{{cite book|last=George|first=Henry|year=1871|title=Our Land and Land Policy, National and State|url=https://archive.org/details/ourlandandlandp00georgoog|publisher=White & Bauer [etc.]|pages=35–48|isbn=9781230444703|author-link=Henry George}}</ref> Later, in his best-selling work ''[[Progress and Poverty]]'' (1879), George argued that because the value of land depends on natural qualities combined with the economic activity of communities, including public investments, the [[economic rent]] of land was the best source of tax revenue.<ref name="George 1879"/> This book significantly influenced land taxation in the United States and other countries, including Denmark, which continues ''grundskyld'' ('ground duty') as a key component of its tax system.<ref name=kjk/> The philosophy that natural resource rents should be captured by society is now often known as [[Georgism]]. Its relevance to public finance is underpinned by the [[Henry George theorem]].

Henry George (1839–1897) was an American economist who developed the concept of the Single Tax on land value.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Progress and Poverty {{!}} Online Library of Liberty |url=https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/george-progress-and-poverty |access-date=2025-04-12 |website=oll.libertyfund.org}}</ref> In his 1879 book ''Progress and Poverty'', George argued that private land ownership allowed individuals to gain unearned income through rising land values,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Roncaglia |first=Alessandro |title=A Brief History of Economic Thought |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2017}}</ref> contributing to inequality and poverty. He believed that as populations increased and cities expanded, landowners profited not from their own labor but from the economic activity of society. George’s proposed land value tax was designed to capture this unearned income and redistribute it for public benefit.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dye |first=Richard F. |title=Land Value Taxation: Theory, Evidence, and Practice |publisher=Lincoln Institute of Land Policy |date=May 28, 2009 |isbn=978-1558441859 |edition=Illustrated}}</ref> His ideas influenced urban policy debates in the United States and abroad and continue to be discussed in relation to housing affordability and wealth inequality. Modern economists, including Thomas Piketty, have noted that land and real estate remain significant sources of wealth concentration.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Piketty |first1=Thomas |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wpqbc |title=Capital in the Twenty-First Century |last2=Goldhammer |first2=Arthur |date=2014 |publisher=Harvard University Press |jstor=j.ctt6wpqbc |isbn=978-0-674-43000-6}}</ref> George's work is recognized for linking economic justice to land ownership and for promoting policy reforms aimed at reducing inequality.

===Meiji Restoration===
After the 1868 [[Meiji Restoration]] in Japan, [[Land Tax Reform (Japan 1873)|land tax reform]] was undertaken. An LVT was implemented beginning in 1873. By 1880 initial problems with valuation and rural opposition had been overcome and rapid industrialisation began.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Takao|first1=Takeda|title=The Financial Policy of the Meiji Government|journal=The Developing Economies|date=December 1965|volume=3|issue=4|pages=427–449 |doi=10.1111/j.1746-1049.1965.tb00767.x |doi-access=free}}</ref>

===Liberal and Labour Parties in the United Kingdom===
In the [[United Kingdom]], LVT was an important part of the platform of the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] during the early part of the twentieth century. [[David Lloyd George]] and [[H. H. Asquith]] proposed "to free the land that from this very hour is shackled with the chains of feudalism."<ref>{{cite news |url= http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/landreform/lr200409200008.htm |title=A revolutionary who won over Victorian liberals |work=New Statesman |location= London |date=20 September 2004 |access-date=13 February 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060110135144/http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/landreform/lr200409200008.htm|archive-date=10 January 2006 }}</ref> It was also advocated by [[Winston Churchill]] early in his career.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://home.vicnet.net.au/~earthshr/winston.html |first=Winston |last=Churchill |title=Land Price as a Cause of Poverty |access-date=13 February 2009 |year=1909 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011217193137/http://home.vicnet.net.au/~earthshr/winston.html |archive-date=17 December 2001}}</ref> The [[Liberal Party (UK, 1989)|modern Liberal Party]] (not to be confused with the [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]], who are the heir to the earlier Liberal Party and who offer some support for the idea)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://libdemsalter.org.uk/en/ |title=Action for Land Taxation and Economic Reform |publisher=Liberal Democrat ALTER }}</ref> remains committed to a local form of LVT,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.liberal.org.uk/policies/planning.htm#public |title=Policy Statement – Planning |publisher=The Liberal Party |access-date=13 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090129193739/http://liberal.org.uk/policies/planning.htm#public |archive-date=29 January 2009 }}</ref> as do the [[Green Party of England and Wales]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/downloads/mfssld.pdf |title=Land |work=Manifesto for a Sustainable Society |publisher=[[Green Party of England and Wales]] |date=March 2000 |access-date=5 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080908092903/http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/downloads/mfssld.pdf |archive-date=8 September 2008 }}</ref> and the [[Scottish Greens]].<ref name="scottishgreens">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3505928.stm|title=Greens unveil land tax proposals|work=BBC News|date=12 March 2004|access-date=22 December 2008}}</ref>

The 1931 Labour budget included an LVT, but before it came into force it was repealed by the Conservative-dominated national government that followed.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Land-value taxation: the equitable and efficient source of public finance|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|isbn=0-7656-0448-5|location=Armonk, N.Y.|oclc=40555854| last = Wenzer | first = Kenneth C. | year = 1999 | page = 163 }}</ref>

An attempt at introducing LVT in the administrative [[County of London]] was made by the local authority under the leadership of [[Herbert Morrison]] in the 1938–1939 Parliament, called the London Rating (Site Values) Bill. Although it failed, it detailed legislation for the implementation of a system of LVT using annual value assessment.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.landvaluetax.org/government-papers/london-rating-site-values-a-bill.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120225523/http://www.landvaluetax.org/government-papers/london-rating-site-values-a-bill.html |archive-date=2008-11-20 |title=London Rating (Site Values) — A Bill|access-date=22 December 2008|website=Land Value Taxation Campaign}}</ref>

After 1945, the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] adopted the policy, against substantial opposition, of collecting "development value": the increase in land price arising from planning consent.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}} This was one of the provisions of the [[Town and country planning in the United Kingdom|Town and Country Planning Act 1947]], but it was repealed when the Labour government lost power in 1951.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}}

Senior Labour figures in recent times have advocated an LVT, notably [[Andy Burnham]] in his 2010 leadership campaign, former Leader of the Opposition [[Jeremy Corbyn]], and Shadow Chancellor [[John McDonnell (politician)|John McDonnell]].{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

===Republic of China===
The [[Taiwan|Republic of China]] was one of the first jurisdictions to implement an LVT, specified in its constitution. [[Sun Yat-Sen]] would learn about LVT from the [[Kiautschou Bay concession]], which had successful implementation of LVT, bringing increased wealth and financial stability to the colony. The [[Republic of China]] would go on to implement LVT in farms at first, later implementing it in the urban areas due to its success.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/chandler-tertius_tax-we-need-1980-02.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140110172449/http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/chandler-tertius_tax-we-need-1980-02.html|archive-date=10 January 2014|title=The Tax We Need|publisher=Tertius Chandler}}</ref>

===Economists' perspectives===

===Early neoclassicists===
[[Alfred Marshall]] argued in favour of a "fresh air rate", a tax to be charged to urban landowners and ''levied on that value of urban land that is caused by the concentration of population''.<ref name="Marshall1895">{{cite book|author=Alfred Marshall|title=Principles of Economics|url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=7yxBAAAAIAAJ |page= 718}}|year=1895|publisher=Macmillan |page=718}}</ref> That ''general rate'' should have ''to be spent on breaking out small green spots in the midst of dense industrial districts, and on the preservation of large green areas between different towns and between different suburbs which are tending to coalesce''. This idea influenced Marshall's pupil [[Arthur Cecil Pigou|Arthur Pigou]]'s ideas on taxing negative externalities.<ref>{{Cite web|title = ESHET CONFERENCE – The Practices of Economists in the Past and Today – Amsterdam|url = http://www.eshet.net/conference/paper_view.php?id=811&p=33|website = www.eshet.net|access-date = 20 August 2015|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161220123938/http://www.eshet.net/conference/paper_view.php?id=811&p=33|archive-date = 20 December 2016}}</ref>

Pigou wrote an essay in favor of the land value tax, calling it "an exceptionally good object for taxation." His views were interpreted as support for [[Lloyd George]]'s [[People's Budget]].<ref>{{cite book
 |last=Pigou
 |first=Arthur Cecil
 |year=1909
 |title=The policy of land taxation.
 |publisher=New York, Longmans, Green
|oclc=12218279
 }}</ref>

===Nobel laureates===
[[Paul Samuelson]] supported LVT. "Our ideal society finds it essential to put a rent on land as a way of maximizing the total consumption available to the society. ...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'."

[[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, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago."<ref name="TidemanEngland1994">{{cite book|author=Nicolaus Tideman|title=Land and taxation|url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=s0wgAQAAIAAJ}}|date=1 January 1994|publisher=Shepheard-Walwyn in association with Centre for Incentive Taxation (London, England)|isbn=978-0-85683-162-1}}</ref>

[[Paul Krugman]] agreed that LVT is efficient, however he disputed whether it should be considered a single tax, as he believed it would not be enough alone, excluding taxes on natural resource rents and other Georgist taxes, to fund a welfare state. "Believe it or not, urban economics models actually do suggest that Georgist taxation would be the right approach at least to finance city growth. But I would just say: I don't think you can raise nearly enough money to run a modern welfare state by taxing land [only]."<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://psmag.com/this-land-is-your-land-2a060d28bd4f|title = This Land Is Your Land|date = 20 October 2009|access-date = 20 August 2015|last = Moore|first = Michael Scott}}</ref>

[[Joseph Stiglitz]], articulating the Henry George theorem wrote that, "Not only was Henry George correct that a tax on land is nondistortionary, but in an equalitarian society ... tax on land raises just enough revenue to finance the (optimally chosen) level of government expenditure."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Stiglitz|first1=Joseph|editor1-last=Feldstein|editor1-first=Martin|editor2-last=Inman|editor2-first=Robert|title=The Economics of Public Services|date=1977|publisher=Macmillan Publishers|location=London|pages=274–333|chapter=The theory of local public goods}} Quote from page 282.</ref>

===Other economists===
[[Michael Hudson (economist)|Michael Hudson]] is a proponent for taxing rent, especially land rent. ".... politically, taxing economic rent has become the bête noire of neoliberal globalism. It is what property owners and [[Rentier capitalism|rentiers]] fear most of all, as land, [[subsoil]] resources and [[natural monopoly|natural monopolies]] far exceed industrial capital in magnitude. What appears in the statistics at first glance as 'profit' turns out upon examination to be Ricardian or 'economic' rent."

[[Rick Falkvinge]] proposed a "simplified taxless state" where the state owns all the land it can defend from other states and leases this land to people at market rates.<ref>{{Cite web|url= https://falkvinge.net/2017/03/01/a-simplified-taxless-state-a-proposal-part-1/|title = A Simplified Taxless State: A Proposal (part 1 of 3)|date = 5 March 2017|access-date = 13 June 2019}}</ref>

[[Fred Foldvary]], an Austrian economist, has expressed support for the LVT and has integrated Georgist and Austrian models into his theory of the business cycle. "Conventional macroeconomics lacks a warranted explanation of the major business cycle, while the Austrian and geo-economic Georgist schools have incomplete theories. A geo-Austrian synthesis, in contrast, provides a potent theory consistent with historical cycles and with explanations about the root causes."<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1997.tb02657.x |title = The Business Cycle: A Georgist-Austrian Synthesis Economists| journal=The American Journal of Economics and Sociology |date =3 July 2006 | volume=56 | issue=4 | pages=521–524 |publisher=Wiley Online Library| doi=10.1111/j.1536-7150.1997.tb02657.x | last1=Foldvary | first1=Fred E. }}</ref>