Killer arguments against LVT, not (49)

Spotted over at An Englishman's Castle, the tried and tested formulation:

What these Land Tax fanatics fail to realise that land is a tool, it is the same as a scribblers typewriter or an accountant's calculator. It is a tool of the trade. The profits of the trade are already taxed. Why should one sort of tool be taxed when others aren't?

Unproductive assets such as jewellery and show off watches would be a fairer target, why not suggest those (1)? The land under your des res may not be a tool but was paid for from taxed income (2).

1) There is no argument for taxing jewellery or watches (as the mining company will usually have paid for the mineral extraction rights, and that is the end of that). The bulk of the value of jewellery or watches consists of the enterprise and effort that go into making them, so taxing the value of the finished product would be just as bad as Value Added Tax, against which I have railed ad nauseam.

2) I commented thusly: ... LVT is NOT double taxation of incomes; income tax is double taxation of land values (if you trade from a good location, you pay the location value to the landlord or the bank; and then you pay income tax to the government on the post-rent profits you made from trading from that good location etc).

Further, historically, taxes on land values were the traditional, and entirely natural, source of public revenue to meet common expenditure and taxes on incomes and output are relatively new inventions. As more and more ground rents were siphoned off into private hands (with the collusion of the government from time-to-time), the government itself had to take a second bite of the cherry by levying taxes on whatever was left over after rents were paid, i.e. by levying taxes on (net) incomes.*

In the Middle Ages the argument that 'I pay for my land out of taxed income' simply did not stack up (as there was no income tax); when they started sneaking in income tax, the counter-argument would have been 'But I've already paid my 'tax' (or 'ground rent') for where I live or where I trade from - income tax is just double taxation'.

* Ultimately, the whole thing bites itself in the behind of course; the rents that the landlord receives are (largely) subject to income tax; the net profits you earn after rents are subject to income tax; and the rent you pay to your residential landlord or the interest you pay to the bank on the mortgage are subject to income tax or corporation tax yet again, etc. Far better to just have one layer of tax - on ground rents and on ground rents only - and have done with it.