There is more joy in Heaven etc.

Spotted by Fraggle at ConHome:

In a previous piece, I discussed a little of the concept of property and its role in Conservatism. The "property" I had in mind there was things like spears, money, shares, cars, factories, jewels. Some readers may have wondered how land fitted in, for there was a traditional notion that no land could be held privately against the Crown (indeed, in some cultures, such as the Teutonic system in Europe and many New World cultures, matters went even further and land was held only in common).

This is of importance in relation to at least four issues...

There follows a long and enjoyable discourse about the difference between the space/location (all points between defined co-ordinates) and the physical land. He concludes:

But you cannot (normally?) own the space (the "land") in which the buildings and the soil sit because, as with the airspace, no property or labour has contributed to its creation...

Fourth, land taxes. In a previous piece, I argued against wealth taxes. But the reasoning of this post suggests that land taxes are not wealth taxes, for land cannot be part of a private citizen's property. The land is owned (if by anyone) by the Crown. So the Crown might legitimately charge a fee for its use. I do not think such a charge should even be described as a "tax". It is more like a usage fee.

Overall then, in this essay I have argued that private citizens cannot own land, and that, if correct, this is important to four interesting contemporary political issues.

[I'd mark him down for referring to "the nation-state" as "The Crown". The British concept of "The Crown" has its own parallel in every country, however that country came into existence and whatever its own creation myth is; and "the nation-state" and land ownership (in the modern sense) are two sides of the same coin; you cannot have one without the other. The nation-state, in turn, is merely a way in which the citizens of that nation-state have chosen to organise themselves (do not confuse this concept with the 'government' from time to time, an identifiable group of people with their own interests, who range from the reasonably benevolent to the downright evil).

So the question is, is it fair and reasonable for each individual occupier of space or location to reimburse all the other citizens for the benefits he gets and the burden he places on others, remembering of course that each individual occupier is entitled to his share of the reimbursement paid by all the other occupiers etc?]

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Then at Neil Craig's:

Basically a tax on the value of the buildings on land provides a disincentive to build or improve the buildings. All taxes on wealth creation, including income, give disincentives to creating wealth/earring income. A tax on the inherent value of land, which largely cannot be changed* by the owner does not disincentivise him from wealth creation. Indeed it does the opposite.

Currently if you own land you can do absolutely nothing with it and you won't have to pay any taxes. This gives anybody who owns some in the centre of London the whip hand in renting it out. In the Highlands it also gives the whip hand to owners of massive estates, or islands, who can and do prevent the building of new houses around villages and stifle communities.
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Not to mention Jeff Taylor at The Economic Voice:

What gets missed in all this though is that this shows what an awful tax VAT really is. It has to be paid by poor and rich alike and it puts a huge burden on business as well as having anomalies like this one. Do you remember all the relabeling and re-pricing and computer changes that the last VAT rate changes generated? Then there’s all the returns the small business owner has to make etc. That time could surely be better spent generating more business.

I would go further and say that just about every form of tax we use is not fit for purpose. We need to replace them all with a much simpler system and that for me is Land Value Tax (LVT), where the landowner gets an annual tax of 6% of the value of the land they own. And that’s it, no other taxes.

That would stop people hoarding property; it would get houses filled and get all the land being used productively. Unused land would still be taxed and if you can’t afford the tax then sell to someone who can. No more supermarket chains buying land to stop the competition building nearby, the government would release as much land as possible so as to get the revenue, empty houses would need to be filled with tenants so the landlord could pay the tax.

With the average house price standing at £160,372 (Land Registry) that would be £9,622 per annum for the average homeowner. But they would not be paying income tax, VAT, council tax etc. Then if you want to impose green taxes you can tax the land the refinery or power station stands on. Land is far easier to tax as you cannot hide it to avoid or evade the tax.

The tax would be based on the purchase price then by annual assessment. So if you bought cheap then built offices on it then it could very quickly be taxed accordingly. And this would probably need fewer tax officials than we employ today using a much thinner and easier to understand tax manual. What’s there not to like?