Re: Why tax income at all?
Yes but the people who work at e-commerce companies still have to cluster into cities to work together, and enjoy the other benefits of working and living in a city. Somehow I don't think Amazon are going to pick a remote town in Arizona for their second headquarters.
The company ends up needing to pay higher wages, so that its workers can afford to live in San Francisco, so it ends up paying the LVT indirectly.
The Economist reckons that the valuation of land is not impossible:
"A third problem is that valuation of the high-priced urban land (rarely sold as vacant plots) may be tricky—and controversial. Wealthy commercial landlords could tie the assessment process up in costly legal knots.
Some of these objections could be overcome. A land tax need not be implemented overnight. It could be phased in, which would mean market signals started working before the levies were actually paid. Hard-up owners of valuable land could be allowed to commute payment until they die. Valuation of urban land, with a bit of maths, is not insuperable."
Biting the hand that feeds IT
