Great example of how land taxes can be used to fund new infrastructure, from Karl Fitzgerald, Projects Coordinator for Earthsharing Australia:
After decades of tax reviews, Treasury is finally modelling the effect of Land Taxes on the macroeconomy…..
Former New York Mayor Bloomberg grasped the economic potentials by reaching out from his local government role to finance the extension of the state run No.7 train line to the Hudson Yards. The added amenity of the train extension was projected to deliver $30 billion in additional property taxes over the next 30 years. Infrastructure bonds were sold to the market with repayment via the increase in land values. This is world best practice at least cost…..
Read more at The planned obsolescence of the public interest – On Line Opinion – 12/11/2015
Well I read Karl Fitzgerald’s article, some of it twice, and I still can’t understand whether he’s optimistic or pessimistic about the future, nor whether he’s advocating reform based on some special knowledge he has, or on a working formula others in the world have that we don’t. Or maybe it’s just a reminder that public interest is no longer part of Government policy? If it’s the latter – well, fair enough – we need to be reminded of that from time to time when the few taxpayers left in Australia decide to storm the castle with pitchforks. But then what? After 50 or so years of taking a layman’s interest in such things, I still can’t point to any Government on earth that knows how to create and manage a sustainable economy that lasts for centuries and not just for the odd decade or two from random booms that always get squandered or allowed to be secreted away into a few pockets. Or perhaps Mr Fitzgerald is hinting that the true purpose of Government is to perpetuate an illusion of wealth-redistribution, while actually creating more and more loopholes to encourage the opposite. Either way, unless both the problem and the solution are clearly described to the right people, we are taken no closer to a better world than we are by my response.