It's not so simple. The upside of taxing income is that income is liquid. Real estate isn't, so it creates a big challenge. For example if the hospital at which I work (who owns a lot of prime property) was forced to pay tax on it, we would be out of business instantly. Many manufacturers who operate on thin margins would have the same fate. I think a better idea is fixing the income tax calculus.
Does this just mean that we should adopt a "progressive" tax system? (i.e., top 1% would pay disproportionately higher amount in taxes than the bottom 10%, and so on?)I think a better idea is fixing the income tax calculus.
Of course we already have that to some extent, I just don't think it's progressive enough. For example, a big part of each low earner's taxes (here in the US, anyway) are payroll tax, which is regressive, the exact opposite of what's healthy. And the capital gains rate is flat and very minimal, which also doesn't make much sense for the economy. IMO changing those two things plus making the income tax more progressive is a better idea than a land tax.
wealth is usually distributed in a power curve so so steal the Forbes "fair" tax easy function.
the tax code should look something like this. tax = ((income ^ p) - standard deduction)/n were 1 < p < 2 and n is somewhere around 5.
Wealth taxes would have to be one time events like the Trump tax and we all know that dude is a genius.
Then would corporations have to pay a higher tax on the land they own as well? If so, costs of goods would increase, if not, what's to stop a person from starting their own corporation and using their firm to buy the land their house is on. Furthermore, I believe it will just shift portfolio distributions. One would prefer to own shares of firms that require little real estate to operate like internet firms. Credit card and internet banking business come to mind as they are able to reach millions of customers without requiring lots of real estate. Manufacturing would get punished and I would foresee lots of middle class workers who work in manufacturing/industrial type jobs to get laid off.
This is the threat but it turns out corporations like to make money even if they have to pay tax on it. The real answer is charging capital gains at the same rate as other income forcing companies to keep their investments in house and not in speculation and management salaries.