The following speech about taxation policy was delivered, in part, on the evening of March 17th, 2025, during the twice-monthly meeting of the city council of Waukegan, Illinois.
The Waukegan City Council allows three minutes for public comments, and normally meets on the first and third Mondays of each month, at 7:00 P.M..
The proposal to which I refer in the speech, and offer to provide to the mayor and aldermen, can be read at the following address:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2021/04/city-of-waukegan-could-expand-vacant.html
A summary of that article can be accessed, as well, at the following address:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2021/04/waukegan-and-lake-county-should-adopt.html
Video of this speech may be available at the following address:
http://www.youtube.com/@WaukeganTV
It’s good to see you again… I’m Joe Kopsick, an eight-year Waukegan resident, originally from Lake Bluff.
Out of more than three thousand
counties in America, only nineteen of them tax property value more than
Lake County does. Property owners feel over-taxed, and they are. That’s why I
want to tell you about a plan to stop taxing property value… and start
taxing the unimproved value of property.
Land Value Taxation (or L.V.T.) is a
plan to decrease urban sprawl – and conserve space in densely-populated areas –
by reducing the number of vacant lots in the middle of cities. L.V.T. would tax
the owners of such parcels of land; because those parcels are going
unused, and because their non-use makes it impossible for everyone else
to derive use from that land.
So, then, the owners should pay a
fee, to the city, in exchange for continuing to exercise ownership of that
property. Cities could use tax liens (or other tools) to ensure that those who don’t
pay such fees would have their property confiscated, and temporarily put into
city custody, until it can be auctioned off in a fair bidding process
(in which monopolists and land speculators can’t place bids).
Four years ago, I looked at the city
budget, classified all taxes into types, and determined whether they follow
L.V.T. principles or could co-exist with L.V.T.. In my opinion, as much as sixty
percent of the current city budget, can and should be replaced with taxes
on the despoilation, hoarding, and non-improvement of land. I propose phasing
L.V.T. in slowly over four years. This proposal could be enacted with or
without a basic income; I propose letting each city decide.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to give
each of you a copy of this proposal. I can also email you a video I made, based
on this proposal; and I have unabbreviated versions of this speech.
While looking at the budget, I also
learned that the city operates a “Vacant Lots Registry Fund”. So – to
facilitate the phasing-in of Land Value Taxes – I propose that the city expand
that fund, into what I would describe as a “vacant lots and homes; polluted
or blighted or hoarded lands; and parcels housing abandoned construction
projects… registry fund”.
It may also help if that fund could
eventually partner with – or maybe even merge into – local land conservation
agencies and Community Land Trusts.
Using L.V.T., we would tax the despoilation
of land, in an intentionally punitive way; instead of accidentally
appearing to “punish taxpayers for producing” (by taxing income, sale and
purchase, and construction). We should phase-in L.V.T.; while phasing-out taxes
on working, buying, selling, consuming, building-values (because it would be
anti-productive and economically harmful to tax these “improvements upon land”).
Enacting Land Value Taxes – including
a tax on owning more than 4.8 acres per person – will free homeowners to
develop, beautify, and improve their homes, without having to worry about
either gentrification, or higher property taxes arising from their having
increased their own property’s value. We need to assess land value fairly – by
“taxing land, not buildings” – in order to reduce the average price of land for
everyone.
Once land is less expensive, everything
on top of the land will – in turn – become less expensive. It will be
easier and cheaper to mix labor and capital on top of the land; more
affordable to work, start a business, and apply human labor to raw materials in
order to produce things we need to survive). When working and starting business
are not taxed unnecessarily, they will be less expensive, and this will lead to
less unemployment, less homelessness, and less landlessness.
L.V.T. would thus make property
taxes and home “ownership” less expensive and easier to understand for the
average person. And I put “ownership” in quotes, because if you have to pay
taxes on something you own - to the government - then it really isn’t truly or
fully yours. L.V.T. solves that problem; by taxing people based on
whether they’re using – and how they treat – their property; instead of taxing
them just because they own it.
L.V.T. is a win-win for everyone;
except for those certain land “developers” - and giant corporations investing
in real estate - who happen to be financial criminals (preying upon cities and
towns, trying to profit from spoiling land, hoarding large swaths of it, and
speculating on its value for personal and investor gain).
That’s why – alongside the enactment
of Land Value Taxes – we should continue (and increase) the fining and
prosecution of people and companies that pollute, or that commit wage theft or
other financial crimes (including mineral companies that take unique resources
from our ground and then “skip town with the money”).
The communists wanted to communize the
commons (meaning the land, water, and air); while people who want free markets say
“laissez-faire” (essentially; leave producers untaxed) and want taxes to
be simpler and easier to understand. This proposal achieves both, satisfying
people on the economic left and right.
Additionally, lowering taxes on
everyone who earns income without allowing land to go to waste or become
unusable, will also help decrease government intrusion into the private
economic affairs of ordinary law-abiding workers.
Land Value Taxation will help us move away from a model of taxing things just because they exist and are valuable, towards a model in which we would fund government with fees and fines levied against financial crimes and other harmful economic activities. L.V.T. will make city budgets easier to fully fund without resorting to double taxation of income by multiple levels of government (which taxpayers dislike). We will be taxing the right things for the right reasons, and the reason for the taxation will be (more often) related to the purpose of the spending.
In summary: Tax land, not man. Tax land,
not labor or capital. Tax bads, not goods. Tax destruction, not production.
Written on March 15th, 16th, and 17th, 2025.
Published on March 17th, 2025.
Delivered in part on March 17th, 2025.
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