Originally published on Forbes.com Oct 16th, 2012
Recently I interviewed Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein. My main source of questions was the Green Party Platform. She kept reminding me that the campaign was distinct from the platform, but went on the answer the questions regardless. Two of the provisions that I found rather intriguing were a wealth tax and land value taxation (also known as community ground rent).
The platform proposes to:
Enact a wealth tax of 0.5% per year on an individual’s assets over $5 million
Here is what Doctor Stein has to say on the wealth tax
One advantage of a wealth tax is that it would get Warren Buffett to stop complaining about not paying enough taxes. As you heard if you listened to the clip, Doctor Stein would be more interested in enacting an intangibles tax, like the one they had in Florida. The proposed rate is fifty times higher than what Florida was charging. Someone developed a clever trust technique to avoid the Florida intangibles tax. It was so easy that some people were of the opinion that letting your clients pay intangibles tax constituted malpractice. Rather than plug the loophole the legislature decided to repeal the tax. I could see implementing an intangibles tax that was limited to marketable securities not being an administrative nightmare, more like an administrative bad dream, probably. That seems to be where Doctor Stein would stop.
Land Value Taxation – Community Ground Rent
Here is what the platform says:
Enact a system of Community Ground Rent/Land Value Taxation that distinguishes between the socially and privately created wealth of land, by increasing the taxes on the former to retain for society the value that it collectively creates and lowers them on the latter to reward individuals for their initiative and work.
Here is our discussion of community ground rent
Land value taxation has a long history as an idea. It goes back to Henry George’s Progress and Poverty. As I noted and Doctor Stein agreed, there could be an anti-Green element to land value taxation, since it would create a lot of pressure to develop land. Fundamentally, the proposal is based on the idea that it is really not right for people to own land. I can really see why the candidate is not putting this part of the platform front and center.
This series will end eventually, but I still have a couple of more clips to discuss. If you have an hour to spare here is the whole interview.
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