Single tax

A single tax is a tax system based on only (or mostly) one tax, typically a tax on land value.[1]

Georgist Single Tax

In the 19th and 20th centuries, a populist single tax movement became popular.[2] It aimed to put a single tax on the rental value of economic land. This movement is often called Georgism, named after its creator, Henry George. It aimed for a simple and fair tax system, where revenue is only based on land and natural resource rents. It would have no tax on improvements to the land, like buildings.

Some libertarians call land value capture an ethical way to fund the state, that doesn't distort the market. The surplus rent could be given out as a basic income, often called the citizen's dividend. This would repay the people who have been refused an equal share to the earth's natural resources, by law (see geolibertarianism).

Some other taxes from the same principles include the Pigouvian Tax, to internalise external costs of production and consumption (like pollution). There are also severance taxes on extracting natural resources, to regulate their use and stop damages (like through overfishing).

Alternative Single Taxes

Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert and Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban were early advocates for a single tax. It would be a flat tax on all incomes.[3]

There have been other ideas of a single tax based on property, goods, or income. There are proposals like FairTax, which aims for a single tax on consumption, or flat tax ideas on personal incomes.

References

  1. ↑ Shearman, Thomas G. (1899). "The Single Tax: What and Why". American Journal of Sociology. 4 (6): 742–757. doi:10.1086/210853. ISSN 0002-9602. JSTOR 2761859. The single tax, therefore, implies the total abolition of all taxes upon personal property, buildings, and improvements, of all custom tariffs, all excise duties, all stamp duties, all poll taxes, and, in short, every tax of every description, except that which is now levied upon the rent of bare land.
  2. ↑ Young, Nichols (1916). The single tax movement in the United States. Princeton University Press. Retrieved 2012-10-21.
  3. ↑ Steiner, Phillippe (2003) "Physiocracy and French Pre-Classical Political Economy", Chapter 5. in eds. Biddle, Jeff E, Davis, Jon B, & Samuels, Warren J.: A Companion to the History of Economic Thought. Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
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