Here's my argument against LTV: Warren Buffet owns one modest house in Omaha. Should he be taxed based on the land value of that modest house, and nothing more? That hardly seems fair.
The principle is to pay for what you take, not for what you make. His modest home, likely on a modest lot, in a not-huge city, is worth little.
For a while, he had a couple of places in Malibu, and he told the WSJ what he thought of Proposition 13, keeping the taxes ridiculously low. Arnold Schwarznegger told him to go do pushups. Buffett saw the injustice.
And, most of his stock holdings occupy land in very valuable places? True to some small degree, but not all that true overall. Take Coca-Cola, for instance. They own some very valuable land in Atlanta. But the value of Coca-Cola is much more than the value of the land, and is mostly unrelated to the value of the land. Should Coca-Cola be taxed based on the value of Coca-Cola, or on the value of Coca-Cola's land?
Should Coca-Cola be taxed on its good will? or for adding to people's satisfaction?
The biggest promoters of Henry George's single tax were business people who saw a way to a more just society in which all could prosper. But there were others -- railroad, steel, other monopolies -- whose continued position depended on keeping their monopolies, and they were less than enthusiastic about the concept.
Who owns the land in the central business district of most cities? Often it is the corporations that use it, but frequently it is trusts of people long dead, whose heirs just keep enjoying the ever-rising land rent. They didn't create the value. The corporations should pay for the value of the land they use; so should the trusts who collect the land rent of our most valuable sites.
And the value of Warren Buffett's holdings might be affected, but the freer market it will create will provide opportunities for all sorts of entrepreneurs to work their business plans.
And recall the data on how concentrated stock ownership is.
OK, but why just the land? Trusts hold stock, too, that some long-dead person bought. Their heirs receive the dividends from that stock, for not having done anything whatsoever. By your logic, why should that not be taxed?
What is so magical about land, that only that should be taxed? What makes it different from all other assets?
> And recall the data on how concentrated stock ownership is.
Yes, I recall the data on how concentrated stock ownership is. The exact same logic you are using on land tax applies to stock ownership. So... what was your point?
Land wasn't created by any individual or any corporation. (Minor, and not eternal, exception: Made Land, such as by filling in a swamp or dumping fill alongside a river. After a century or so, it stops being special, and is simply land, whose value comes from its location and the services that are provided to it.
When the companies that issue stock are paying LVT on the land they occupy, and on the finite natural resources they claim for themselves and process to sell to consumers, the value of their stock will be reduced somewhat by that "pre-distribution."
So either you need to say that LVT applies to those kinds of assets, or you need a different explanation for why land and not other assets.
Land is always in demand (the economic term being that demand is inelastic) since everyone needs it, and it is the source of all material wealth (agriculture, energy, commodities). Thus it is an effective tax.
I have yet to hear an argument for an alternative to land that is more sensible to tax.
The stock is taxed indirectly. Georgism holds that all wealth fundamentally comes from the land. This isn't completely true in the digital age but it is still true enough.
> Their heirs receive the dividends from that stock
If you tax income it never goes away. You just take a portion of whatever is there. If you tax wealth then the wealth is eventually drawn completely into the society. That's the fundamental difference. LVT is a tax on wealth.
Yeah, I think that's most of the debate right there. A bunch of us seriously question whether it is "still true enough".