We’re like this, idiotically taxing purchases
and the incomes of labour and capital,
because the 0.1% has made us afraid
to tax the annual value of land.
Now that tax reform is in the air,
their emissaries tell us we need
a tax on financial transactions.
Anything, anything at all,
to keep taxes off land values.
Cheers Bryan! Hopefully I will see you there.
Yep, I’ll be at the Henry George Dinner, so maybe we can discuss if those figures are arbitrary or not, Jesse. Meantime, if you look up “ATCOR” (search this site) and note that even ol’ John Locke himself saw that all taxes ultimately come out of rent anyway, you’ll see there’s always enough rent to replace taxation. As Mason Gaffney says, there’s enough and to spare: http://economics.ucr.edu/papers/papers08/08-12old.pdf
Speaking of which, I have some questions for you: Regarding the tax rates of economic rents; what determines the tax rate of RRTs? I read it in Karl’s TRRA report, and I noticed you mentioned it somewhere on this website; why the arbitrary number of 40%? And what determines the arbitrary number of ~6% for LVT?
Do these percentage rates theorectically collect all the economic rent/”producer” surplus? And is it necessary collect every last drop of rent, or is the vast majority of it sufficient?
If economic rents were theoretically (I know practically they can today) unable to fund 20% percentage of the budget; would you either reduce government spending or, reluctantly tax labour and capital to make up the difference? My question relates to your “Classical components of GDP Australia 1911-2005” graph from the riches of Oz; it’s very obvious that in the 60s, economic rents alone would not have been enough to replace taxes.
As a retired homeownerand Georgist yourself (from what I can gather), how do you propose a transition to a Georgist taxation system that doesn’t significantly penalise home owning retirees? I know George equated former land owners as former slave owners, but such an attitude won’t sell in this country today… The middle class has been deceived (through no fault of their own) that housing is an investment and is a safe asset to retire on; to start charging owner occupied retiree housing a holding tax is… optimistic at best.
On an unrelated matter, are you attending the 123rd annual Henry George dinner in September?
Í wouldn’t dispute Dan, whom I know, Jesse, but let’s tackle first things first and see how much money/credit/inflation craziness remains after we take economic rents for necessary government revenue.
To do it the other way around wouldn’t solve much at all if the land price chimera is still allowed to underpin loan ‘security’.
But surely the battle against monopoly does not end with land rents?
As a Georgist named Dan Sullivan once told me, it is not enough to defeat either the land monopoly or the money monopoly; they must both be broken. You cannot eliminate one and ignore the other.
If land is the mother of all of monopolies, then (private debt based) bank created money is the father of all monopolies. Together they have given birth to the bastard child that is the modern tax system.
Henry George not only advocated for the nationalisation of economic rents, he also advocated the nationalisation and use of government created money, as mentioned in “Social Problems” page 178.
I would not give up hope Bryan, I’m an 18 year old who discovered George’s work by chance less than 6 months ago. There are also other pro-Georgist forces in groups such as the “Future Party”.
No, no longer a member. I thought the party got a bit lost on the reason for the GFC: i.e. what happened to get us here, and how we have to reverse that process by drawing revenues from land incomes, instead of counter-productive taxes on the incomes of labour and capital.
So does that mean you don’t agree with the ASP’s debit tax reform policy? Last time I asked, Greg said you’re still a member. :p
In all seriousness though, I’m hoping that despite the change in taxation policy; the ASP state branches (once created) could possibly create a Georgist (state and local govt) tax reform platform. After all, the myth of vertical fiscal imbalance in Australia can easily be dispelled with LVT etc. not to mention it would be ridiculous to centralise all the taxation power into the federal government. I can’t seriously see the debit tax being the sole source of state government revenue; that would violate the seperation of powers principle. What’s your opinion on this Mr Kavanagh?