![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Letter Published in the Financial Times
Nov. 27th, 2017 10:48 pmThe Financial Times printed a letter of mine today, and here it is as they printed it, which is very nearly as I wrote it:
Land value tax ought to please (nearly) everyone
Sir, Rositsa Kratunkova maintains that "tax competition undermines the values of solidarity" in the EU (November 21). I would answer that tax competition serves the worthy purpose of preventing governments from fleecing their citizens too badly. She writes that where corporate and income taxes are low, the only solution seemed to be to place the burden on consumers. I would answer that this seemed to be so only because better alternatives were not considered.
States could instead impose taxes on the value of land, without discouraging the non-existent production of land. Progressives ought to be pleased with this, since the owners of valuable land are generally the rich, while conservatives and classical liberals should be pleased at taxes on income and business being reduced.
Nicholas D Rosen
Arlington, VA, US
Land value tax ought to please (nearly) everyone
Sir, Rositsa Kratunkova maintains that "tax competition undermines the values of solidarity" in the EU (November 21). I would answer that tax competition serves the worthy purpose of preventing governments from fleecing their citizens too badly. She writes that where corporate and income taxes are low, the only solution seemed to be to place the burden on consumers. I would answer that this seemed to be so only because better alternatives were not considered.
States could instead impose taxes on the value of land, without discouraging the non-existent production of land. Progressives ought to be pleased with this, since the owners of valuable land are generally the rich, while conservatives and classical liberals should be pleased at taxes on income and business being reduced.
Nicholas D Rosen
Arlington, VA, US
