THE SINGLE TAX 
161 
tax more burdensome or more continuous than that 
borne by every man that has lived in a house since a 
house tax was invented. 
The gross ground rent of the land of the City of Boston 
is by careful estimate more than .... 155,000,000 
Of this amount there is already taken in taxa 
tion more than ....... 10,000,000 
Leaving to the landowners of 1916 a net ground 
rent of ....... . $45,000,000 
The fact that this sum amounts to $75 per 
capita, or $375 pet family, will help the mind to 
grasp its magnitude as a factor in the distribu 
tion of wealth. 
State and local taxes upon improvements, buildings, 
personal property, and polls amount to much less 
than $15,000,000 
If this additional amount were taken from rent there 
would still remain to the landowners a balance 
of $30,000,000 
or $50 per capita, or $250 per family. 
Coming to the consideration of the means by which 
more revenue may be gradually raised from the land 
and the burden of taxation made more proportionate 
and reasonable, choice may be had from a variety of 
methods. The one most frequently suggested is that 
of appropriating by taxation part or all of the future 
increase in land values. If Boston should decide to 
start to-day and take in taxation her future unearned 
increment above the present value of $722,000,000, 
the case would be exactly the same as that of some new 
community where no value has accrued, a situation 
in which the ideal justice of the single tax is so fre 
quently conceded. 
If Boston had decided ten years ago to take in