GROUND  RENT  A  SOCIAL  PRODUCT  25

the  appreciation  in  the  value  of  their  land  may  be
fairly  reckoned  as  an  offset  to  the  imposition  of  any
new  tax  upon  it.
This  present  exemption,  however,  is  not  offered  as
a  reason  for  additional  taxation,  but  rather  as  a
justification  for  taking  the  opportunity  to  transfer
the  present  load  from  the  head  and  the  tail  to  the  back
and  shoulders  of  the  horse.  As  an  anti-single-tax
professor  of  political  economy  happily  puts  it:  “The
beauty,  to  my  mind,  of  a  tax  upon  land  values  is  that
in  a  few  years  nobody  pays  it.”
XII  The  Single  Tax  as  an  Income  Tax
An  income  tax  has  always  been  a  favourite  form  of
tax,  because  it  has  been  regarded  as  well  calculated  to
bear  upon  “  each  according  to  his  ability.”  The  taxation ­
  of  ground  rent  would  surely  be  the  purest  possible
exemplification  and  application  of  the  principle  of  the
income  tax,  because  it  would  fall  upon  all  those  incomes ­
  which  are  unearned,  which  are  in  their  nature
perpetual,  and  which  are  amply  able  to  bear  the
whole  burden  of  taxation.  Of  course,  such  an  income
tax  should  have  impartial  application.  A  large  unearned ­
  income  should  be  taxed  at  the  same  rate  as  a
small  income  of  the  same  nature  and  derived  from  the
same  source.  If  it  is  right  that  corporations  or  other
aggregations  of  capital  should  engage  in  business
enterprises  for  profit  upon  equal  terms  with  individuals, ­
  then  it  is  right  that  an  impartial  income
tax  should  impose  at  least  the  same  rate  upon  the
many  million  dollar  incomes  of  the  railroads  and  the
coal  operators,  and  United  States  steel  companies,
as  upon  smaller  unearned  incomes  of  one,  five,  or
ten  thousand  dollars,  derived  from  the  same  source.