32 THE A B C OF TAXATION 
rid himself of the mortgage interest that he has to pay 
through raising his tenant’s rent by a corresponding 
amount. Mortgage interest is a lien held by an 
individual; similarly a tax may be clearly conceived 
as a lien held by the State. Both affect the relation 
between the property owner and lien holder; neither 
has any bearing upon the relations between owner and 
tenant. “Tax” is simply the name of that part of the 
gross ground rent which is taken by the State in taxa 
tion, the other part going to the owner; the ratio these 
two parts bear to one another has no effect upon the 
gross rent figure, which is always the sum of these two 
parts, viz., net rent plus tax. The greater the tax, the 
smaller the net rent to the owner, and vice versa. 
Ground rent is, as a rule, “all the traffic will bear”; 
that is, the owner gets all he can for use of his land, 
whether the tax be light or heavy. Putting more tax 
upon land will not make it worth any more for use, will 
not increase the desire for it by competitors for its 
tenancy, will not increase its market value. 
To illustrate, let us consider the case of a piece of 
land for which the landowner gets $i ,000 rent from the 
man who uses it. 
First: The owner, let us say, pays over to the city 
in taxes $100 of this $1,000 rent. Is there any indi 
cation that this $ 100 tax has any influence in fixing 
the present rent at $1,000? 
Second: Fet us suppose that next year the city 
decides to take another $100 of the $1,000 rent in taxes. 
Could the owner then add the $200 tax to the tenant’s 
rent, making it $1,200? 
Third: Fet us suppose that the following year the 
tax is increased by another $100 and so on, by an annual