Land value taxation (i.e. property tax applied only to the unimproved value of land) has a long history in the United States dating back from Physiocrat influence on Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. It is most famously associated with Henry George and his book Progress and Poverty (1879), which argued that because the supply of land is fixed and its location value is created by communities and public works, the economic rent of land is the most logical source of public revenue.[1] and which had considerable impact on turn-of-the-century reform movements in America and elsewhere.[2] Every single state in the United States has some form of property tax on real estate and hence, in part, a tax on land value. However, Pennsylvania in particular has seen local attempts to rely more heavily on the taxation of land value.
- ^ George, Henry (1879). Progress and Poverty. The often cited passage is titled "The unbound Savannah."
- ^ Barker, Charles Albro Henry George. Oxford University Press 1955 and Greenwood Press 1974. ISBN 0-8371-7775-8