Land value tax

A recurring tax on land’s value that excludes buildings and other improvements. Because the tax base cannot be moved or reduced by withholding construction, it changes incentives differently from taxes on buildings or income.

Site value: The value of a parcel of land apart from buildings and other improvements. This is the tax base, separated from the value of structures on the parcel.
Henry George: An American political economist and reformer who advocated taxing land values. His writing made a single tax on land value a major political cause.
Land value taxation in Pennsylvania: A system used by some Pennsylvania municipalities that taxes land at a higher rate than buildings. These cities provide long-running examples of split-rate property taxation.
Buildings tax: A tax assessed on the value of buildings and other improvements rather than land. It taxes construction directly, the incentive a land-only levy is designed to avoid.
Deadweight loss: The loss of economic surplus caused when a policy prevents mutually beneficial exchanges or choices. Because land supply is fixed, taxing its value is often argued to create less distortion than taxing production.
Property assessment: The process of estimating a property’s value for taxation or other administrative purposes. Assessors must separate land value from improvement value to calculate the levy.
Progress and Poverty: Henry George’s 1879 book arguing that rising land values can coexist with poverty and economic progress. The book supplied the best-known case for capturing land rent through taxation.
Split-rate property tax: A property tax that applies different rates to land and buildings, usually taxing land more heavily. It is a practical transition from taxing all property value to emphasizing land.
Value-added tax: A consumption tax collected on the value added at successive stages of production. It taxes transactions and production rather than the fixed value of a location.
Land speculation: The purchase or holding of land in expectation of future price increases. A recurring levy raises the cost of holding valuable sites without developing them.

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