The Economic Journal

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE TAXATION OP SITE VALUES WITH REFERENCE TO THE DISTEIBUTION OF POPULATION.1 The ultimate effects of reforms affecting the rating of land values are extremely difficult to foresee; and my remarks will, therefore, be chiefly suggestive of the lines on which further research appears to me to be necessary,...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE TAXATION OP SITE VALUES WITH REFERENCE TO THE DISTEIBUTION OF POPULATION.1 The ultimate effects of reforms affecting the rating of land values are extremely difficult to foresee; and my remarks will, therefore, be chiefly suggestive of the lines on which further research appears to me to be necessary, rather than an attempt at a final solution. Moreover, I shall confine myself to one point, namely, the effect of the reforms which have been recently proposed on the distribution of the population of towns, a subject to which adequate attention has not, I think, yet been given. For the purposes of discussion, these reforms may be considered under two heads. The first is the assessment of property according to the capital value, or as if it were put to tho most profitable use to which it could immediately be put; and the second is the transfer of a part of the rates from buildings to land. It is generally admitted, I think, that both these methods of reforming our rating system would increase the inducement to expend more capital on the land. It may, however, be convenient briefly to recapitulate the reasons for this belief. The effect of rating property as if it were used in the most profitable manner would be to make owners more desirous thus to use it; and, in order to employ vacant land or land on which there are comparatively small buildings so as to get the largest rent immediately obtainable, further capital expenditure would be necessary. Where valuable land is vacant, and therefore not rated, the desire to build on it will obviously be increased by the imposition of a rate; and, as to land on which there are buildings, there will be a similar increase in the desire to rebuild when such rebuilding could be profitably undertaken. Without doubt a considerable num...