Politicians are loath to acknowledge this, but the fundamental purpose of taxation isn't just to fund the public good, it is to discourage rent-seeking. Economi

Politicians are loath to acknowledge this, but the fundamental purpose of taxation isn't just to fund the public good, it is to discourage rent-seeking. Economic rents (not to be confused with the rent you might pay for an apartment) are dead weight, so any tax that can target them without disrupting actual productive work is effectively free money. One of the best ways of doing this is, as you proposed, to tax the unimproved value of the land. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax