If there was no property tax we would be back to the privileged few owning all the land and serfdom.
...it remains in the interest of everyone that their landholding be protected as part of the overall jurisdiction. Would you tax those closer to borders more, because their land is more expensive to protect than Indiana or Iowa?
Invading armies don't stop at the borders, they go all the way. Everyone should pay the same rate per acre. If a person owns a million acres, then he has incentives to make good use of the land or he can sell it to someone who can make better use of it than he can. With no property tax, then why develop it, he could squat on it for the rest of his life if he had an alternative income. The left could buy up all the private property and then make it off-limits to everyone, farmers, hunters, what have you.
One of the few Constitutional tasks the Government is required to do (and has done without an acreage tax) is to provide for the common defense.
I despise the taxing of building and structures. It limits growth. May the person who best can develop the land own the land.
Whether taxes be collected through an income tax, excise taxes, fuel taxes, whatever, it is pretty much a given that someone with a million acres would spend more and pay more taxes than someone on a 75X150 lot, just taking care of the place, and it is far more likely they would be producing food, minerals, oil, coal, timber, or any of a host of other products on their land--all of which at some point would be taxed. So the assumption they they wouldn't be paying their "fair share" is bogus.
The left had a campaign in the late 80s of buying land in Costa Rica and South America and not allowing the land to be developed. They would do the same here. Sean Penn and his pals would own half of Wyoming and make it off-limits. We would get no economic gain from the land and on top of that we would pay taxes to the Federal Government to provide the military defense of his utopia.
First, there is no Federal Property tax now, nor should there be. Property Taxes are State, County, or local. Measure 2 in North Dakota in June would eliminate taxes on real estate at any level. Consider that we are the second largest oil producer in the US, and that the state gets a cut of every barrel of oil and every cubic foot of gas produced and that we have a 6 billion dollar surplus in the State coffers, we don't need a property tax. We have enough to run the state for six years now without collecting another dime, and we have more than 30 other major sources of revenue for the State.
As it stands, the serfs pay land rent to the government or get their holdings confiscated, buildings and all--because the buildings are on the land.
Kindly tell me just what the difference is.
Free men own their land, owing no one.
Some own more land than others. Some spend their money on farmland, others put it in the stock market, still others buy the latest fashions, but all have the option of buying land.
Some have more beanie babies than others, should we tax those too? Am I hearing 'acre envy' here?
You say you won't tax structures, so the owner of a 50 story office tower won't pay any more than the guy in a one bedroom shack with the same acreage?
Either you haven't thought this through, or worse, you have.
By the way, the land doesn't just sit there--without a long term plan, it won't yield anything but expense for the owner, although wildlife may do pretty well. Timber harvests (and replanting), crop production and rotation, even knowing which portions of the land are most suitable for what are things seldom learned within a couple of years. Some of the best stewards of land have passed it down through fifteen or more generations. Relatives of mine are on land which has been in the family since the mid 1600s and that is still productive land, except where the government won't allow the harvest of timber, timber planted by an ancestor 180 years ago. For the last 350+ years they have been paying taxes on that land. Enough.
My wife's people were given official deeds to the land they had owned far, far longer. Often the fellow who delivered the official deeds was accompanied by the fellow who served them notice of lien for back taxes (same wagon), and being without government issue cash, lost ten million acres of land, all nice and 'legal', but morally obscene.
Land taxes were used to strip southern farmers of their land (bought up by Carpetbaggers) after the Civil War. It is a time honored way to take land away from the owners, all nice and legal.
But from the rest of your spew, I suppose you'd think it's someone else's turn.
The left could buy up all the private property and then make it off-limits to everyone, farmers, hunters, what have you.
Google "Nature Conservancy". They do. What's worse, is those selfsame special interest groups lobby or sue to have policies implemented to make it impossible for the owners to pay their property taxes and force the sale at bargain prices. The Government also (and here's the favorite) takes land from private owners and makes 'wilderness areas' and 'wildlands', and Parks and National Monuments and establishes buffer areas which limit the uses private owners can put their land to--all the while private owners are paying taxes on the land.
Everyone should pay the same rate per acre.
So, if I own a gold vein, that should be paying the same rate per acre as West Texas scrubland? An Acre of Manhattan is worth the same as an acre north of Wamsutter, Wyoming? B.S.
Sean Penn and his pals would own half of Wyoming and make it off-limits.
The Federal Government does, and has, for everyone but a few tourists.
BUT you would open the door to the Federal Government (again) taking (more) land from those who have paid for it, with the same old tired excuse, so it could be 'more productive' (than the Indians, than the flyover country people, still the same forked tongue), even though the uses the owners can put their land to are often proscribed by the selfsame government you would have tax the land.
You miss who the threat is, here. Government is not the solution, it is the problem.