Asingle tax is a system of taxation based mainly or exclusively on one tax, typically chosen for its special properties, often being atax on land value.[1][2]
Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert andSébastien Le Prestre de Vauban were early advocates for a single tax, but, rejecting the claim thatland has certain economic properties which make it uniquely suitable for taxation, they instead proposed aflat tax on allincomes.[3]
In the late 19th and early 20th century, apopulist single tax movement emerged which also sought to levy a single tax on the rental value of land and natural resources, but for somewhat different reasons.[4] This "Single Tax" movement later became known asGeorgism, after its most famous proponentHenry George. It proposed a simplified and equitable tax system that upholds natural rights and whose revenue is based exclusively on ground andnatural resourcerents, with no additional taxation of improvements such as buildings. Somelibertarians advocate landvalue capture as a consistentlyethical andnon-distortionary means to fund the essential operations of government, the surplus rent being distributed as a type of guaranteedbasic income, traditionally called thecitizen's dividend, to compensate those members of society who by legal title have been deprived of an equal share of the earth's spatial value and equal access to natural opportunities (seegeolibertarianism).
Related taxes derived in principle from the land value tax includePigouvian taxes to internalize theexternal costs of pollution more efficiently than litigation, as well asseverance taxes on raw material extraction to regulate the depletion of unreplenishable natural resources and to prevent irreparable damage to valuable ecosystems through unsustainable practices such asoverfishing.
There have been other proposals for a single tax concerning property, goods, or income.[5] Others have made proposals for a single tax based on other revenue models, such as theFairTax proposal for aconsumption tax and variousflat tax proposals on personal incomes.[6]
The single tax, therefore, implies the total abolition of all taxes upon personal property, buildings, and improvements, of all custom tariffs, all excise duties, all stamp duties, all poll taxes, and, in short, every tax of every description, except that which is now levied upon the rent of bare land.
