In a message dated 1/16/03 3:31:03 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I can't imagine any tax that would be "neutral"
A tax on economic rent is neutral, since by definition, economic rent is income not necessary in order to put a factor to its most productive use. Fred Foldvary >> I'm not sure if I'm following this, but it sounds like you're saying that it's okay to tax "non-productive" income because that's bad. That sounds very much again like a Progressive notion of taxation, and in any case doesn't seem neutral among different types of incomes/activities. I'm probably not understanding your argument fully, but I do think part of the confusion comes from the (at least) two different definitions of "neutrality." Maybe taxing rent is justified because rent is "bad" income, but that doesn't make it neutral across different types of income. Incidentally, you talked earlier about taxing land value rather than rent (I'm presuming because we expect the value of land in a free market to capitalize the rent), which might, as sometimes happens with existing real estate taxes, force the owner to sell his or her land just to pay the tax. That seems like one of the greatest wrongs of all. DBL
