The social and economic ills besetting the world are the result of non-conformance to natural law: All persons have a right to the use of the earth and all have a right to the fruits of their labor: a fairer, more egalitarian society.

From the mid-1700s into the 1800s, Adam Smith "Wealth of Nations" (1776) and David Ricardo's "Law of Rent Theorem " (1809) followed the French Physiocrats reasoning in formulating a win-win method of implementing natural law 'rights': In 1758, Francois Quesnay's "Tableau Oeconomique" documented the Physiocrats' precept, "the wealth of nations was derived solely from the value of land agriculture or land development" which led to a more logical reasoning; That Economic Rent must be shared with the community as public revenue, and that all taxes on labor and the fruits of labor be abolished.

"Tax bads not goods"
(Economic Rent Explained by Frank deJong: Economic Policy Resolution)

In December 2012, nine Irish academics wrote the following open letter to the Editor, Irish Independent newspaper – concise AND comprehensive enough to make sense to those unfamiliar with the The Law of Rent theorem (Economic Rent, Land or Site Value Tax).

Why site value tax is best option
Open Letter to the Editor
Independent.ie
December 2, 2012
Madam – We the undersigned support the introduction of a property tax based on the unimproved value of all residential sites, and all zoned land, ie the value that has not been created by the landowner. A tax on the unimproved portion of property value is a Site Value Tax (SVT).

SVT is the most equitable, efficient and effective property tax option for the Government. Unlike a conventional property tax that taxes the 'improved' portion of the property, ie the buildings and thus penalises construction, SVT is non- distortionary, creates no economic drag and has minimal adverse effects.

By capturing unearned value at an early stage of the property development process, SVT discourages empty buildings, land speculation, hoarding and over-zoning and diverts capital and available credit into productive investment and sustainable jobs. In the long term, an SVT will moderate violent fluctuations in the property market and general economy.

SVT provides a stable base to fund vital infrastructure and services and offers a transparent link between the private benefits of public investment and the source of the investment.

SVT will reduce the property tax burden on homeowners by one-third by spreading the burden on to development land-owning individuals, firms and banks which were largely responsible for the current crisis.

– Peter Antonioni, Fellow, University College London;
– Bill Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law, University of Kansas;
– Dr Micheal Collins, NERI (Nevin Economic Research Institute);
– Karl Deeter QFA, (LIAM) dip;
– Dr Constantin Gurdgiev, Adjunct Professor, Trinity College;
– Dr Stephen Kinsella, University of Limerick;
– Professor Brian Lucey, Trinity College;
– Dr. Ronan Lyons, Balliol College, Oxford;
– Dr Terrence McDonough, Economics, NUI Galway.

2022
Another mistake - Taxing 'houses' instead of land value:

The Irish Times view on property tax: the tax-averse left
Dublin City Council is wrong not to increase the levy
Irish Times, September 22, 2022
Since the local property tax was introduced in 2013, councillors have had the power to raise or lower the rate by 15 per cent.
>>>more

More details: Ireland's Sovereignty Crisis . . .

"Tax by Design" - Mirrlees, et. al., 2011

"Reforming the tax system for the 21st century."

Mirrlees Review

The Mirrlees Review brought together a high-profile group of international experts and early career researchers to identify the characteristics of a good tax system for any open developed economy in the 21st century, assess the extent to which the UK tax system conforms to these ideals, and recommend how it might realistically be reformed in that direction.

The Review is published by Oxford University Press in two volumes. The first, Dimensions of Tax Design, consists of a set of specially commissioned chapters dealing with different aspects of the tax system, accompanied by a series of commentaries by different expert authors, voicing differing opinions on the issue discussed. The second volume, Tax by Design, sets out the conclusions of the Review.

The Mirrlees Review brought together experts to identify the characteristics of a good tax system for any open developed economy in the 21st century.

Both volumes are available to download free of charge here.

See special 2011 edition of Fiscal Studies on the Mirrlees Review here.

Land Value Covenants vs Mortgages:
An option to switch from paying income taxes
to signing a "Covenant" on the locational value of your land - a Covenant which remains on the property's title.

"An extremely clever choice and very Georgist."
– Bryan Kavanagh

Policy Briefing
Systemic Fiscal Reform goals
Systemic Fiscal Reform (SFR) is a process of reform moving from the current tax, welfare and monetary system to one based on based on economic, financial and moral integrity.  The endpoint of this process is a much more stable and productive society with the following features:

No Income or Corporation Taxes
– Replaced by payments pledged by property owners

Income Tax and Corporation Tax are to be phased out (along with all payroll taxes, National Insurance payments and Gains taxes). In their place, government will be funded by payments pledged by landowners through covenants established on a voluntary basis.  These pledges are called Location Value Covenants (LVCs), and are inspired by or using the English legal instrument of land covenants.

No Value Added or Sales Taxes – Replaced by a Carbon Tax

VAT and sales taxes are to be abolished. In their place, a uniform Carbon Tax is levied on all extraction and importation of fossil fuels. This Carbon Tax is in proportion to the pollution and climate change potential of the fuel when used in the normal way.

No Estate (Inheritance), Gift, Transfer or Stamp Taxes

Estate taxes such as Inheritance Tax and Accession Taxes are to be abolished. All Stamp Duties are to be abolished, including those on share and real-estate transfers.

No means-tested welfare benefits – Replaced by a Citizens' Dividend

Welfare benefits based on poverty, joblessness tests or housing costs are to be abolished.
Any welfare payments based on disability are retained. >>> more

European Journal of Sustainable Development Research (EJSDR)
Land Value Capture and Tax Increment Financing:
Overview and Considerations for Sustainable Urban Investment
by Simon Hugh Huston and Ebraheim Lahbash
EJSDR July 2018, 2(3), xx ISSN: 2542-4742 FULL Text

What is it about?
Funding gaps impel governments to seek alternative funding sources. Taxing in the 'unearned increment' of land which passively inflates due to population pressure and economic growth is an untapped infrastructure finance source.

Why is it important?
Climate change, health and unresolved inequality suggest a tempering of UK 'laissez faire' urban development model which, arguably, panders to developer vested interests. Sustainable development impels more upfront transport infrastructure compared to current 'mass housing' or 'dormitory' fossil-fuel orientated sprawl. LVC can help internalise urban development externalities so that land owners and developers pay their 'fair' share. However, circumstances vary and policy needs careful and informed calibration.

Perspectives
Dr Simon Hugh Huston, Coventry University
After years living abroad, one is struck by UK spatial policy failure, manifest by 1) the decrepit state of regional transport infrastructure and obvious funding needs 2) the comfortable complacency of UK elites (who seem to have pocketed land value uplifts without making any social or innovative contributions). Land Value Capture helps temper inequality, nudge community engagement and safeguard the future. Source

The Private-Investment Community Land Trust:
A Better Way to Revitalize Communities
by Dan Sullivan
Excerpt

The Essential Concept
The private-investment community land trust is an alternative system for private land-holding, for generating community revenues, and for encouraging better land use. Essentially, land users lease the land, rather than purchase it, from a land trust. The trust then uses lease revenues to pay investors, to provide community services, to rebate taxes levied against occupants of trust land by larger taxing bodies, and to acquire additional land. It has many advantages over our traditional land tenure system, and particularly over urban-renewal projects, to the occupants, the investors, and the communities in which they are located.

Current Occupants Can Stay
People often complain that urban redevelopment projects create "gentrification," by which they mean pushing poorer people out in order to entice richer people to move in. The land trust approach attracts richer people and more dynamic businesses with little or no displacement of those already living or doing business in the community. Studies show that when a community gradually improves, it actually loses fewer residents than similar communities that stagnate or continue to decline. The real cause of displacement is the urban renewal project that is undertaken to trigger gentrification. Indeed, the original term for "urban renewal" was "slum clearance." >>> more

Speech by Winston Churchill
Land and Income Taxes in the Budget
Edinburgh, July 17, 1909
Shared on Project Gutenberg
Excerpt: We are often assured by sagacious persons that the civilisation of modern States is largely based upon respect for the rights of private property. If that be true, it is also true that such respect cannot be secured, and ought not, indeed, to be expected, unless property is associated in the minds of the great mass of the people with ideas of justice and of reason.

It is, therefore, of the first importance to the country - to any country - that there should be vigilant and persistent efforts to prevent abuses, to distribute the public burdens fairly among all classes, and to establish good laws governing the methods by which wealth may be acquired. The best way to make private property secure and respected is to bring the processes by which it is gained into harmony with the general interests of the public. When and where property is associated with the idea of reward for services rendered, with the idea of recompense for high gifts and special aptitudes displayed or for faithful labour done, then property will be honoured. When it is associated with processes which are beneficial, or which at the worst are not actually injurious to the commonwealth, then property will be unmolested; but when it is associated with ideas of wrong and of unfairness, with processes of restriction and monopoly, and other forms of injury to the community, then I think that you will find that property will be assailed and will be endangered.

A year ago I was fighting an election in Dundee. In the course of that election I attempted to draw a fundamental distinction between the principles of Liberalism and of Socialism, and I said "Socialism attacks capital; Liberalism attacks monopoly." And it is from that fundamental distinction that I come directly to the land proposals of the present Budget.

It is quite true that the land monopoly is not the only monopoly which exists, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies; it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly. It is quite true that unearned increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit which individuals are able to secure; but it is the principal form of unearned increment, derived from processes, which are not merely not beneficial, but which are positively detrimental to the general public. Land, which is a necessity of human existence, which is the original source of all wealth, which is strictly limited in extent, which is fixed in geographical position - land, I say, differs from all other forms of property in these primary and fundamental conditions.

Nothing is more amusing than to watch the efforts of our monopolist opponents to prove that other forms of property and increment are exactly the same and are similar in all respects to the unearned increment in land. They talk to us of the increased profits of a doctor or a lawyer from the growth of population in the towns in which they live. They talk to us of the profits of a railway through a greater degree of wealth and activity in the districts through which it runs. They tell us of the profits which are derived from a rise in stocks and shares, and even of those which are sometimes derived from the sale of pictures and works of art, and they ask us - as if it were their only complaint - "Ought not all these other forms to be taxed too?"

But see how misleading and false all these analogies are. The windfalls which people with artistic gifts are able from time to time to derive from the sale of a picture - from a Vandyke or a Holbein - may here and there be very considerable. But pictures do not get in anybody's way. They do not lay a toll on anybody's labour; they do not touch enterprise and production at any point; they do not affect any of those creative processes upon which the material well-being of millions depends. And if a rise in stocks and shares confers profits on the fortunate holders far beyond what they expected, or, indeed, deserved, nevertheless, that profit has not been reaped by withholding from the community the land which it needs, but, on the contrary, apart from mere gambling, it has been reaped by supplying industry with the capital without which it could not be carried on. >>>more