, Columnist
A Land Tax Won’t Make Cities More Affordable
It’s not the tax system that makes urban and suburban real estate so expensive, it’s the political system.
Tax the land, not the houses.
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The land tax, an idea that dates to Henry George and the classical economists of the late 19th century, is having another one of its moments. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times views the case for it as “overwhelming,” as do many others. I am less certain.
The levy, also called the land-value tax, is more radical than higher property taxes; it is an attempt to capture the entire value of land and redistribute it to the government and, in turn, the citizenry. As such, it requires separating the value of property improvements (such as buildings) and the value of the land itself.