On October 25, 2019, the Minneapolis City Council approved the “Minneapolis 2040” plan. City officials produced it to guide the development of Minnesota’s largest city into the mid-21st century. The plan focuses on a variety of developmental areas, such as jobs, education, the environment, and… Read More »The Minneapolis 2040 Plan Is Unlikely to Provide Affordable Housing
The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation is pleased to announce the creation of the “Center for Property Tax Reform” (CPTR), a new, joint undertaking with our long-time collaborator, the Center for the Study of Economics (CSE) in Philadelphia. Those of you who know CSE, and its Executive… Read More »A Long-Time Partner, A New Partnership
In January of 2019, Thailand instituted a land and building tax. Two thirds of the thirty- three million property parcels had been appraised by mid-year, with the revenue intended to finance local (provincial) governments. Political pressures against the implementation of the tax, were intense in… Read More »Impacts of Land Taxes in Thailand
Restrictions on and regulation of land use are known as “zoning” in the United States and “planning” in the United Kingdom as well as in many other parts of the world. The legitimate purpose of these controls is to prohibit uses of land that are… Read More »The Economics of Land Use Controls
by Fred Foldvary The most effective way to reduce climate change is with a “green tax shift” which replaces taxes on wages, goods, and enterprise with levies on pollution and land values. There are three basic ways to reduce polluting emissions: regulations, permit trading, and… Read More »Climate Change and the Green Tax Shift
Land Value Taxation (also known as split-rate real property taxation, and two-tiered real property taxation) is a type of real property taxation. Whereas the typical real property tax taxes both land and the improvements on the land at the same rate, LVT taxes land at a higher rate… Read More »What is Land Value Taxation?
Few people illustrate the reach and influence of online discussion better than Matthew Rognlie. In April 2014, the 26-year-old MIT student had just read Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and among the numerous reviews of the book, he felt that a nagging problem was not… Read More »The Evidence Is In: Land Is The Cause of Inequality
A land value tax is a tax that is assessed on the value of a piece of land, rather than the value of the buildings that sit on it. Under a land tax, you are effectively taxed on the value of your location, which is… Read More »What is a land value tax?
Henry George (1839-1897) is best known today for Progress and Poverty (1879). Eloquent, timely and challenging, this book soon became and remains the all-time best-seller on economic theory and policy. In 1879, George electrified the world by identifying one underlying cause for two great economic plagues: chronic… Read More »Henry George 100 Years Later: The Great Reconciler
