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A land value tax (famously advocated by early political economist Henry George of San Francisco) does exactly this: you tax the unimproved portion of the value
by astazangasta 10y ago
A land value tax (famously advocated by early political economist Henry George of San Francisco) does exactly this: you tax the unimproved portion of the value of property, and don't tax improvements. Land that has high value unimproved therefore costs money to sit idle; this encourages landlords to make improvements, rent out their space, etc. It also means landlords don't benefit from the portion of value that does NOT stem from their improvements, i.e., it discourages speculation.
- tmnvix 10y agoIt also has the added benefit of making productive investment (e.g. in a business) relatively more attractive than what many choose to do now - i.e. purchase property with the intention of capturing much of the value (in the form of capital gains) created by public investment. A rentier economy is neither sustainable nor desirable.