Unimproved land tax

[GaryV]

I will give kernals the benefit of doubt, and assume he meant to tax the land as if it had no structures on it.  He proposes 1%.  Then take the proceeds of that tax to make what he calls dividend payments to all the people.  By excluding the improvements that are made - for example his parents' house - this tax wouldn't be charged to anyone for paying for improvements.

He also says that the value of property is a crap-shoot depending on what happens to the land or the surrounds.  I'm not sure why that makes any difference.  Value is value, no matter how it got there.  I'm not sure if his "unimproved" condition of the land would exclude the value of oil that was found there.  Nor the increase in value when a suburb envelops the property.  Or if Gates or Bezos wants it for a new HQ.  Although there are some investors who are more savvy than lucky and have benefited handsomely from their initial investments in what others didn't consider as desireable.

At best this seems to be a "Robin Hood" scheme - take from the (now?) rich and give to the poor, and also give some back to the rich.

The question becomes, what problem is this meant to fix?  Is it a solution in search of a problem?

[Scott5114]

I'm going to go ahead and step in here to say that discussion of non-transportation tax policy is way outside the remit of the forum–taxes have been the political thing to argue about in the US since 1773, and we don't talk politics here.