Incentive Property Taxation Can Enhance Housing Affordability

Tom Gihring
Common Ground OR/WA
Seattle, Washington
May 1999

“An alternative method of property taxation proposed by a growing number of environmentalists is based upon a foundation laid by a 19th Century reformer. In his seminal book, Progress and Poverty, political economist Henry George lays out his fundamental reform premise: the abolition of involuntary poverty by opening the earth’s resources on equal terms. Greater access to land could be accomplished, he argued, by reducing taxes on wages and capital, and by placing a higher levy on land holdings. Owners of unused sites would be induced to sell their sites at reasonable prices, thus bringing idle land into productive use and allowing more workers to engage in productive work.”