The ABC of taxation

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

JUSTICE OF THE SINGLE TAX 117 on both “visibles and invisibles.” We would exempt buildings, because, by the same system under which you collect from the poor man a tax upon his house in which he lives, you are assessing the rich man for his store, his office building, and his apartment house, a tax which he himself can never be made to bear. Equalisation is possible only by abolishing the tax on all buildings. i Single taxers want to shift the taxes from the house to the land, because every time this is done it is made easier for the individual to get the house; whereas when the tax is shifted from the land to the house, it becomes harder to get both house and land. We say, tax the land and exempt all other wealth, because, when you tax both the opportunity to produce (land), and the thing produced (wealth), you are in the broadest sense inflicting double taxation. You do not tax the old building, because, commer cially speaking, it has “gone to decay.” Why, then, should you tax the new building, which, from the moment it is finished, is fast “going to decay”? We say, tax only the land value, which never decays. The millionaire should pay for the same sort of land the same tax per acre as the poor man, and no more. When he occupies a similar seat in the theatre, to see the same show, he simply pays the same price for his ticket, full value for what he gets. When taxes are levied in proportion to “benefits bestowed,” no need remains for taxation according to ability to pay. Justice of the School Tax We sometimes hear the question: Is it proportionate and reasonable that the poor man’s vacant lot should

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