Land Problems in Palestine (RLE Israel and Palestine) by Abraham Granovsky

Author:Abraham Granovsky [Granovsky, Abraham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138907355
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2016-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

5

(b) It is a moot question whether—and how—taxation of land can be used to curb speculation. The line of enthusiastic advocates of taxing away profits from land runs from Adam Smith down to Adolf Wagner and the modern land reformers. The last named insist that taxes do not raise the price of land, and cannot be tacked on to rents, but that they serve as a means of bringing back to the public a part of the accrued values.3 Others, however, see little advantage in land taxes under existing conditions, because every penny of the charge will be passed on by the land speculators to the public through the house-builders and house-owners. Housing evils can hardly be obviated by this method.4

Two aims may be pursued in land taxation: (a) Financialfiscal, wherein the land is regarded as a source of revenue to the state or municipality; (b) political-reform, by combating the evils of private ownership and—in the wider implication—by helping to solve the land question in general. Taxation is not an adequate means of achieving the reformative purpose. “It must be admitted that taxation is not by itself a basic method of land reform.”5 The landowner will always be able to add the taxes paid to the selling price of his land, though not, indeed, without limit, because its value is fixed, normally, by its rent-yielding capacity. But in Palestine, where numerous immigrants seek opportunities to invest their capital, and where houses bring high rents, a buyer does not hesitate to pay more for his land, because he expects to reimburse himself out of the rents. However, the method of taxing sites should not be underestimated as a check to speculation, since a part of the unearned increment is thus restored to the community. Moreover, owners of vacant plots are by this means forced either to build or to sell, so that holding land for a long period in order to skim the accumulated profits is made impossible.

Compulsion to sell (which is equivalent to compulsion to build) is most important for Tel Aviv. Hardly a third of its area is now built up. According to a recent report to the city administration, there are 2,000 vacant and 1,000 undivided building plots there. In the center of the city lie many vacant plots, whose owners—especially if they live abroad—do not build and will not sell, because they want to extract the utmost from the present favorable market. The municipality disburses large sums for public works—water supply, cutting of streets, lighting (soon there will be sewerage also)—all of which must be carried out on a broad and expensive scale because of the numerous vacant sites. This imposes an excessive burden upon the home-dwelling citizens. The absentee landlords contribute very little to the municipal expenses, the modest tax upon vacant sites being paid by only 20 per cent. of the owners.

Tel Aviv has two kinds of ground taxes: (1) the above-mentioned site tax, or “tax upon the general (selling) value,” applying only to vacant

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.