If you build a nice home in the city, one of your first visitors will be the tax assessor. The tax you will have to pay is the penalty for improving the city. The nicer the house, the higher the penalty. Does this make sense to you? A tax on buildings discourages building. A land tax encourages building. It's one of those mind-bogglingly simple ideas that never gets the attention it deserves.

Diane Lucidi
Director of Government & Public Affairs
Greater Philadelphia Association of REALTORS

Allentown went for the land value tax in 1996. Did it work there? Let's let Allentown resident Patrick Toomey tell us:

Let's say you're a homeowner and you fix up your home on your own dime and your own time. You make the neighborhood and the community a better place by building an addition or rehabbing the inside. What happens? The assessor comes by and adds to your assessment and so your taxes go higher - sometimes a lot higher. Some reward for doing your part!

Consider what happens to a house next door to you; it's owned by an absentee landlord, the roof is falling in and the windows are broken. They go to the assessor who gives THEM an assessment cut; THEIR taxes go down.

Such a system is exactly backwards.

When the people of Allentown voted for the land value tax in 1994, nearly 3 out of every 4 properties saw at least some sort of tax cut. Today, many of the properties that did pay more have new or better buildings on them, stabilizing the tax base to the point where we haven't had a tax increase in five years. In that time, the number of building permits in Allentown has increased by 32% from before we had a land tax.

Land value taxation is pro-homeowner, pro-business and pro-community. I can wholeheartedly recommend this program?"

State Representative Patrick Toomey
Allentown, PA

What is taxed can make a real difference in the economic health of a city. Because of the destructive impact of taxes on jobs, sales and production, Philadelphia has seen a near collapse of many of its neighborhoods and business. We need to take a bold step: the incremental moves of decades past have not worked. The taxation of land values is a proven way to liberate the very best impulses of humanity in both creating community and creating - and keeping - personal wealth.

Joshua Vincent
Executive Director
Center for the Study of Economics
1422 Chestnut Street, Suite 414
Philadelphia, PA 19102