The Unplumbed Revenue Potential of Land Part 3: ATCOR (All Taxes Come Out of Rents)

by Mason Gaffney

When we lower taxes, the revenue base is not lost, but shifted to land rents and values, which can then yield more taxes.

This is most obvious with taxes on buildings. When we exempt buildings, and raise tax rates on the land under them, we are still taxing the same real estate; we are just taxing it in a different way. Continue reading

Repopulating New Orleans

by Mason Gaffney

Our latest Nobelist in economics, Professor Thomas Schelling, offers the following advice about New Orleans: “There is no market solution to New Orleans. It is essentially a problem of coordinating expectations….” By that he meant simply that each person’s incentive to move home and rebuild depends on his or her confidence that others will do likewise. Continue reading