Taxation for Low Cost Wood Fiber*

Abstract . If forest industry taxation is to be put on a sound economic basis, the Federal Government, the largest land owner, should pay the same taxes as any other landowner, so that the social and economic effects of taxation are realized. Specialists report that the form of the property tax preferred for the taxation of the property of the forest industry, under most circumstances, is land value taxation, not the property tax based on income realized at some point In the future which presumed the continued existence of virgin forests. This paper recognizes that the forest industry now is based on harvests of tree crops and proposes a further development of the land value taxation principle in the form of a forest tax composed of a land value tax combined with a tax on tree growth which increases as growth as a percentage of volume growth decreases with the tree's increasing age.     

Site Value Taxation and Manvel's Land Value Estimates

Replacement of the existing property tax with a. tax on site value requires that the site value base be sufficiently large to generate the same revenue as the existing tax. The adequacy of the site value base is examined in view of Manvel's land value/property value estimates. The conclusion is that only partial replacement may be feasible in many cases, but this may still produce a desirable effect.     

Political Economy of Property Tax Reform: Hawaii's Experiment with Split‐Rate Property Taxation

Economic theory suggests that switching from a general property tax to a split‐rate tax increases land use efficiency and stimulates urban core development while preserving the environment and reducing urban sprawl. Under split‐rate property taxation, land is typically taxed at a significantly higher rate than improvements. Beginning in 1965 Hawaii experimented with a statewide split‐rate property tax system to encourage economic growth and effect land reform. The experiment was ended in 1977. Following the transfer of property taxing powers to the counties in 1978, some counties brought back the split‐rate property tax at times. Since 2006, Kauai County has adopted the unusual practice of taxing improvements at a higher rate than land for most property classes. This article chronicles and explains the rationale behind Hawaii's state and county experiments with split‐rate property taxation.     

Public Spending, Land Taxes and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis of the Adequacy of Land as a Tax Base

Abstract . Site value taxation is often cited as desirable on efficiency grounds, but is all too often dismissed for alleged lack of revenue potential. This paper empirically tests the revenue adequacy of site value taxation. Revenue adequacy in this study is defined as the ability of the tax base to keep pace with community expenditure needs. The paper concludes that communities with higher than average rates of capital growth and with a relatively constrained land area will find land taxes when subsituted for present property taxes, quite adequate for future as well as present needs.     

Lively Lands: The Spatial Reproduction Squeeze and the Failure of the Urban Imaginary

This article argues that the theoretical invisibility of non-privatized land tenures constitutes a failure of the urban imaginary, which restricts the ability to forge less commodified urban futures. The article explicates two attributes of non-privatized land—fungibility and combinatoriality—that produce an urban land nexus capable of fostering pro-poor agglomeration economies and generating socialities that exceed the model of the separative self that is hegemonic in more propertied settings. Fungibility, it shows, externalizes supportive economies of production and reproduction into surrounding neighborhoods by shifting the boundaries and terms of usufruct without cadastral oversight or regulation. Combinatoriality—a hybrid formulation of combined territories and combined territorialities—describes overlapping forms of access to land or demarcations of legitimate land use, either competitive or reciprocal. Together, these two attributes of non-privatized land systems produce a propinquity requirement for economic production, or a social density and liveliness more limited in privatized land markets. Through a diagnostic analogy with the simple reproduction squeeze characteristic of subsistence agrarian settings, it charts how an urban spatial reproduction squeeze—felt globally in dense, rising-rent environments across the global North and South—generates subsistence needs that mixed-tenure environments are uniquely capable of fulfilling and that can provide inspiration for radical housing struggles elsewhere.     

Optimal property taxation in the presence of interregional capital mobility

A single region's optimal property tax policy is examined in a model with interregional capital mobility. In this model, property taxation is used to finance local public expenditures. Different tax rates may be imposed on property used to produce goods which are traded between regions and property used to produce nontraded goods (e.g., residential property). The key determinants of the difference between the optimal tax rates are identified, and it is argued that there exists a bias towards relatively low tax rates on property used to produce traded goods. The role of labor mobility is also investigated.     

Use-Value Assessment Tax Expenditures in Urban Areas

Use-value assessment is the practice of valuing land for property tax purposes in its current use, rather than at its full market value. This practice is widespread in the U.S. and is intended to reduce the property tax burden on agricultural land near urban areas and slow the pace of land development. We examine the foregone property tax revenue, or tax expenditure, due to use-value assessment. Data sets for two case studies are employed in empirical estimation of spatial models of the difference between market value and use value, providing the analytic basis for estimates of tax expenditures.     

How Much Revenue Would a Full Land Value Tax Yield?In the United States in 1981, Census and Federal Reserve Data Indicate It Would Nearly Equal All Taxes

Abstract . Most urban economists and particularly specialists in urban public finance consider the land value tax, because of its economic effects and its influence toward rational development, the tax of choice. But could it replace, in whole or in large part, taxes which now burden labor and capital and distort efficient allocation of resources? How important would a full land rent tax's yield be? The U.S. Bureau of the Census provides data which, adjusted for errors and omissions, indicates that the annual land rent for 1981 was $721 billion. Federal Reserve Board data, similarly adjusted, indicates annual land rent for that year was $590.38 billion Hence we may say that a full land rent tax would yield something around $658 billion in 1981, or 28 percent of the 1981 national income. This is nearly two thirds of all taxes levied by all levels of government in 1981, and, with user charges and similar fees continued, it is probably equal or nearly equal to burdensome taxes.     

A. R. Prest's Investigation of the Case for Site Value Taxation

A bstract . Urban site value taxation —an application to one of the several types of land and natural resources of Henry George's proposals for recapturing for the public's benefit the value its presence and activities accord to land—has been investigated by a leading British fiscal economist, A. R. Prest. He finds that the taxation of urban land is badly in need of reform. Considering the options available, he declares: "With site value rating (land value taxation ) there surely is a very strong case for further experimentation." Professor Prest surveys the whole literature of the question in a strictly objective fashion.     

Henry George's Impact at Home and Abroad: He Won the Workers of Marx's Adopted Country But Through Leninism Marxism Has Won Half the World

Abstract . Henry George, the American economist and social philosopher, considered it an anomoly that, under modern industrial conditions, progress and poverty should march together. He recognized that the juxtaposition of wealth and want was a worldwide phenomenon and traced its cause to monopoly, particularly the monopoly of land and natural resources. Realizing that current taxes on consumption and production were disincentives to capital and labor, he proposed that governments tax the only true surplus, economic rent, through land value taxation. This would enable the people to reassert their common title to the land—the earth. His message was accorded a more favorable reception abroad than at home. Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital in England but it was George, not Marx, who appealed to the British workers. Yet it was Marxism that swept half the world into State socialism, conquering by political power and bayonet-Leninism while George's followers pursued the democratic approach of public education.     

Henry George and the Institution of Private Property in Land: A Property Rights Approach

Abstract . Conflicting statements concerning whether the implementation of Henry George's single tax proposal would destroy the institution of private property in land have appeared in the literatures of economics and other disciplines. A number of writers have implied that the taxation of Ricardian rent is equivalent to land nationalization. In the main, followers of George have denied that the single tax would abolish private property in land. Their claim is based on the fact that land titles would remain in private hands under the single tax. Since the whole question of private property is beset with ideological difficulties, a property rights approach is applied to this issue in an attempt to resolve the controversy. The conclusions are that the actual implementation of George's system would not destroy private property in land and that it is incorrect to equate the single tax with land nationalization.     

Infrastructure's Expenditures: Changi Airport,Food Cargo and Capital's Technosphere

Urban research has long maintained that an unwavering link exists between urbanization and infrastructures, with the latter serving as structuring devices that give material and discursive shape to a city's socio‐ecological composition. But, while infrastructures’ mediative power and consequent ecological effects are well established, present scholarship tends to associate them with only a specific set of metabolisms—namely, those tied to urban (re)production—at the expense of wider capitalist projects that may exceed discrete urbanisms. Complexifying this view, this article posits that infrastructures can constitute larger systems and frameworks that help capital achieve networked forms of accumulation. Specifically, it follows recent theorizations on the technosphere—artificialized environments of interacting systems—to demonstrate how infrastructures help drive particular dispositions and modes of production and consumption beyond cities. Through documentary analyses and interviews with industry players, the article uses the emergent food cargo business at Singapore's Changi Airport as an empirical case to exemplify the enfolding of one such technosphere through infrastructures. It shows how paying heed to these technospheric formations exposes hidden expenditures—in this instance, of land, energy and labour—that not only underpin a global regime of (food) circulation, but also result in additional socio‐ecological costs often omitted in urban research.     

Land Value Taxation in Vancouver: Rent‐Seeking and the Tax Revolt

At the beginning of the 20^th century, Vancouver obtained international acclaim as a “single‐tax” city. Supporters claimed that land value taxation was responsible for the spectacular growth of the city. Even critics believed that it had produced a building boom and declining rents. Yet, over several decades, the system was scaled back and ultimately ended in 1984. This article argues that the property tax revolt can be understood with Mancur Olson's model of collective action. Property owners are better organized than other parties impacted by housing policy because they have financial resources and a salient economic concern in housing. Thus, the special interests of property owners in higher values and unrestricted use prevailed over the interests of tenants and prospective buyers. While the property tax revolt was often articulated in the progressive language of ability to pay, when confronted with progressive counterarguments, it collapsed into explicit arguments for rent‐seeking.     

Accessing the Urban Commons Through the Mediation of Information: The Eliana Silva Occupation,Belo Horizonte,Brazil

This essay demonstrates how mediations (called Dialogues) between the University of Belo Horizonte and the residents of the Eliana Silva Occupation in that city have secured not only the right to urban land and constitutional rights that have been historically violated in Brazil, but also the right to that which is of common interest. The essay speaks to Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's contention that what is common goes far beyond the provision of public services. This starting point allows us to see that urban occupations are politically empowered, to the extent that poor people consciously violate the Brazilian law governing the right of possession and ownership over urban land through creative and cooperative actions that are undertaken and extended across networks. This essay will focus on the centrality of the struggle to build a common communication platform serving to nourish social ties and sociability among those social actors who share the same human deprivation—lack of access to what should be widely available to all citizens. On the theoretical side, the essay takes Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour and Milton Santos as its guides to understanding how social actors act in the struggle for socio‐spatial coexistence and urbanity.     

Henry George and British Socialism

Abstract . Henrys George, the American social reformer and Single Tax advocate, had a decisive impact on native British socialism considered apart from the Marxist and revolutionary types imported from the continent. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were hostile critics but the typically English Fabian Society was influenced by George's seminal ideas. The Fabians were especially attracted to two notions: the conception that George gave to the thought of his time, that poverty was an evil preventable by political intervention—by State action; and that the disparity in incomes could be explained by the theory of unearned increment. In turn Sydney Olivier, George Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, Annie Besant, H. G. Wells and E, R. Pease came under the influence of George. Soon to affect the Fabians, however, was the development of the economist, P. H. Wicksteed, beyond George to Jenons and Marginalism. Key figures in the Parliamentary and Independent Labour parties almost achieved land value taxation.     

The Difference Between Short and Long Run Effects of Police Outlays on Crime: Policing Deters Criminals Initially, But Later They May 'Learn by Doing'

Abstract . In the long run a positive relationship of police expenditurescrime is derived in models which explain criminal behavior In the short run, however, the statistical results point to the possible deterring effect of police expenditures. A theoretical model is constructed to explain the statistical difference of the short and long run effect of police outlays on crime. As police expenditures increase, crime level diminishes. As time elapses, criminals may adjust to the new level of police effort, improve their performance and at the same level of outlays, increase their criminal activities. This phenomenon could be termed “Criminals’Learning by Doing”. It could explain why, over the long run, the level of crime is positively associated with police expenditures. The empirical analysis examines pooled cross sectional time series of 47 states over the period 1970 to 1980—a total of 517 cases.     

Privatizing the commons: reforming the ejido and urban development in Mexico

Few studies worldwide have analysed how to manage equitably the process whereby ‘customary’ or ‘common’ land can be incorporated into future urban development, particularly in so far as this might be achieved through privatization and deregulation. This paper focuses upon Mexico and the 1991–2 reforms of Article 27 which dramatically changed the tenure codes and political relations covering the widespread customary land sector — called ejidos. It is argued that, in effect, the reforms constitute deregulation of former tenure relations rather than outright privatization, and that rather than being radical in content, the reforms are subtle redefinitions of past practices in which the balance of administrative power over ejidal land has shifted significantly, away from the Agrarian Reform Ministry towards the Social Development Ministry and local (city) government. Deregulation appears to offer three principal scenarios for public and private sector ejido land development: Urban Development Companies, Joint Ventures and Extension to the ‘Urban Zone’, yet to date there is little evidence that any one has proven sufficiently attractive to be pursued intensively, and the paper suggests that illegal alienation of ejido land is likely to continue and may get worse. However, the latest Urban Development Program 1995–2000 identifies ejido land deregulation and urban development as one of its principal strategies, tied to President Zedillo’s New Federalism project, which seeks to strengthen municipal and state government capacity and effectiveness. This profound shift in the structure of political managerial authority and responsibility offers the increased likelihood that land regularization practices and urban planning of the now deregulated ejidos will become more significant in the future.     

Public Choice and Land Tax Fairness

Land value taxation (LVT) as desirable U.S. tax policy was brilliantly set forth by the American publicist and economist, Henry George, in the book Progress and Poverty, published 100 years ago. Economists concerned with state and local taxation have generally accepted the basic elements of George's analysis. The absence of substantial LVT legislation despite the economic efficiency and ethical strengths of land as a tax base arises from two sources. First, the public perception of land has not separated land's attributes from those possessed by other property. Second, land ownership data have not been gathered and publicized. Groups favoring taxes that promote economic justice and efficiency should support efforts to develop land ownership data. It would be an important first step toward fully utilizing the potential of LVT.     

Groundwater and the Land Value Tax

Abstract . Application of the land value tax has been described for many natural resources. However, the problems encountered with flowing underground resources have not been fully discussed. Groundwater is one such flowing resource that affects the value of surface land. The underground water is also subject to its own market forces. If a Georgist tax is to be applied to groundwater or to land affected by it, the administrator of the tax must consider the interplay that occurs between the two resource markets. A system of separable property rights to the two resources offers the prospect for efficient use. But the monitoring of ground water use must accompany such a separation.     

Impacts of Privatization of Customary Land Rights in Zambia: A Comparative Study of Rural and Peri‐urban Locations

In its quest for development, Zambia is pursuing a land policy that facilitates privatization of customary land. This article investigates the effects of privatization in terms of how it shapes people's behaviour and perception of private tenure and related tenure dynamics. Findings have shown that the appetite to privatize land is growing stronger in peri‐urban areas as land becomes more scarce. Furthermore, privatization of land appears to be a threat to traditional political structures as allegiance and loyalty towards chiefs diminish and tension and struggles over land in peri‐urban areas increase. Similarly, privatization of land erodes people's faith in the role that cultural and ancestral beliefs play in traditional land management. Also, people in rural areas tend to favour private tenure more if ‘privatization of customary land’ means allocation of land to outsiders. If, by contrast, the phrase is taken to mean communities registering their own land, peri‐urban communities tend to have a stronger desire to register land. Furthermore, rural communities were found to be less informed about land policy and seemed less keen to be involved in land policy processes when compared to peri‐urban residents. However, rural people may have no reason to inform themselves about land policy until they realise that the policy is likely to affect them.