I think LVT does have a history in US, e.g Pittsburgh.
Also Georgism is 100% LVT -> A land tax alone has been the recommendation of many economists before and after George - From Smith, Riccardo, Mill to Friedman. Across classical, neoclassical, Keynesian, Austrian schools. If there's one thing economists can agree on, it's that land tax is better than income tax.
Random thought, would be it be good to extend land tax to use of all common public goods. E.g. radio frequencies, mining, water, CO2 pollution. Things you own, licensed or consume that take from the common good. Obviously this need constant tweaking E.g. as new tech makes different things valuable.
Yes, it's been suggested that all scarce inputs to the economy should be taxed. And yes the idea of Georgism is to let market set the prices and tax based off of that.
It does become complicated when the scarce inputs are things like highly specialized labor. Georgism wouldn't tax that monopoly, though our current systems (progressive income taxes) do. Many people would want a system which penalizes businesses for buying up e.g. all the veterinarians in a city and charging monopoly prices.
Randall Wray frames this as “tax bads not goods”. In other words: don’t tax payroll, we want companies to hire. Don’t tax labour: we want people to work. Don’t tax company profits: we want profitable companies. DO tax pollution. DO tax interest income: we don’t want people to get money for doing nothing. DO tax resource usage. If your houses are too big tax house volume. If your land is being banked tax vacancy and so on.
Interest income is not taxed under Georgism btw, except for income on land speculation.
If you buy company x, restructure the business, start turning a profit, then sell the company -> that income (capital gains under current system) is untaxed in Georgism
If you buy an empty lot, wait 10 years to sell it to someone at a higher price, then all that profit is taxed (before it is realized too).
skew-aberration · · focus · HN ↗
Also Georgism is 100% LVT -> A land tax alone has been the recommendation of many economists before and after George - From Smith, Riccardo, Mill to Friedman. Across classical, neoclassical, Keynesian, Austrian schools. If there's one thing economists can agree on, it's that land tax is better than income tax.
jdjdndndbd · · focus · HN ↗
skew-aberration · · focus · HN ↗
It does become complicated when the scarce inputs are things like highly specialized labor. Georgism wouldn't tax that monopoly, though our current systems (progressive income taxes) do. Many people would want a system which penalizes businesses for buying up e.g. all the veterinarians in a city and charging monopoly prices.
dools · · focus · HN ↗
skew-aberration · · focus · HN ↗
If you buy company x, restructure the business, start turning a profit, then sell the company -> that income (capital gains under current system) is untaxed in Georgism
If you buy an empty lot, wait 10 years to sell it to someone at a higher price, then all that profit is taxed (before it is realized too).