I want to point out that this is not really about revenue generation but about fairness -- the law requires that property be valued at market value, and so that's the policy that should be followed.

As for revenue, that's a political decision. The thing is that elected officials control the tax rate, not SDAT. SDAT only values the properties.

Rising property values don't have to mean rising taxes, the elected officials can lower the tax rate in response -- this what the term "no new revenue rate" is for.

It's also not just about pushing tax burden onto vacant lots. When property A is undervalued relative to property B, property B picks up more of the property taxes. So if a lot of vacant land is undervalued, that means a lot of improved land is paying more taxes proportionately. It seems sub-optimal that property where nobody lives is given a tax subsidy and the difference is realized in rising taxes for everyone else.

The main point is that the law requires that everyone be valued at market rate. That should be done first. Then any special case exemptions, write-downs, discounts, and the tax rate itself, should be handled at the political layer, where they are explicit and conscious rather than implicit.

We can debate what the relative impact of this is in the big picture, but this seems like something that is worth fixing.