I love MetroJacksonville because I get to read the thoughts of qualified planners and lawyers and other city-related professionals. I'm posting this in hopes of getting more useful comments.
Tax land, not buildings, not income, not capital, not sales, not imports
A recurrent economic idea is a land value tax, which would abolish all taxes except for a tax on land (not buildings). This tax was promoted by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Winston Churchill as the most efficient tax. As we all know, anything that is taxed is effectively discouraged. The problem with taxing income is it discourages work. The problem with taxing capital is it discourages investment (and encourages hiding money offshore). The problem with property taxes, which include buildings + land, is that they discourage development and maintenance of buildings. The problem with sales taxes (and tariffs) is that they discourage trade. A tax on land value alone discourages inefficient uses of land, such as an entire downtown full of surface parking lots or a lack of dense high-rises nextdoor to mass-transit hubs. Land taxes also capture the value that arises from city improvements like new roads that increase trade and raise the value of land along the road. In this way, city improvements can be made to pay for themselves. I believe that recent ideas of pollution taxes are similar to a land tax, in that they tax the undesireable uses of scarce resources.
Has anyone read about land value taxes in urban environments?
The requisite Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax)
A few recent articles:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/14/property_taxes_are_a_barbarous_relic_tax_land_instead.html (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/06/14/property_taxes_are_a_barbarous_relic_tax_land_instead.html)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e98b4da-5d56-11e1-869d-00144feabdc0.html (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e98b4da-5d56-11e1-869d-00144feabdc0.html)
I live in a house with 7 acres of land that has been in my family for a very long time. At least 6 acres of that land is forest which provides habitat for birds, helps soak up rainwater, and helps the air quality. If you eliminate taxes on buildings, I feel sure that I would be hit with even higher taxes than I already have. I would have to sell to a developer who would pack in as many houses as possible. Who does it benefit to lose undisturbed land and gain yet another pocket subdivion of probably ugly and poorly built houses?