The Long History of Seeking Land-Value Tax

Edward J. Dodson

[Reprinted from The Herald, Glasgow, Scotland. 13 July, 2006]

A colleague of mine forwarded a copy of the letter from Robin Harper, MSP, supporting the adoption of land-value taxation at council level. The economic literature going back to Adam Smith, Patrick Edward Dove and Thomas Paine tried to convince their contemporaries of the wisdom of looking to land values as a (or the) primary source of revenue to cover the cost of public goods and services.

Paine argued that those who control land owe a ground rent to society for the privilege they enjoyed. An active land market simply provides the data to determine accurately how much ground rent ought to be collected via taxation.

Here in the US, I spent 35 years working to help rebuild distressed communities. Land-value taxation is the one tool that addresses the core problem of why economies falter - the long-term, chronic under-utilisation of land. When combined with the significant reduction in taxation of property improvements, the incentives to invest in job-creating commerce are very real, indeed.