As a follow-up on Warren Samuel's post, readers may like to read today's  
Financial Times, whose economics editor, Martin Wolf has a germane  
article, "Land Tax is Something to Build on". See  
  
https://registration.ft.com/registration/barrier?referer=3Dhttp://news.ft.  
com/home/uk&location=3Dhttp%3A//news.ft.com/cms/s/609e9684-f717-11da-a566-  
0000779e2340.html  
[Login required.]  
  
  
It begins thus:  
  
How should one finance infrastructure? How should one decide what  
infrastructure to build? The answer to these two questions would appear  
self-evident: we should build infrastructure if benefits exceed the cost  
and we should finance it by taxing the beneficiaries.  
  
Who are those beneficiaries? Landowners is the answer. Land taxation is  
the natural, efficient and just way to finance the capital cost of  
infrastructure. That is the point of a thought-provoking pamphlet by  
Fred Harrison, research director of the Land Research Trust [_Wheels of  
Fortune: Self-funding Infrastructure and the Free Market Case for a Land  
tax_ Institute of Economic Affairs]. ...  
  
Roger Sandilands