Taxing Church Land, Ctd.

One the topic of taxing non-profits, here's an idea from LTVfan, one of our commentators:

I'm heartily in favor of taxing the land under nonprofit buildings; I'd favor exempting the buildings themselves from taxation.  Valuing land well and accurately is relatively easy; valuing buildings, particularly special-purpose buildings like churches, is much more difficult and expensive.

Many downtown churches sit on large pieces of land, bought decades or centuries ago, perhaps with the foresight of land speculators in the lay leadership.  Frequently, the land is underused, and currently no mechanism exists to nudge it into more use.

But I encourage you to consider the effects (and costs) of taxing ANY buildings, and submit that we'd be wiser to simply tax land value, and treat buildings and their contents as private property, not subject to taxation.  Land value, unlike the value of buildings and personal property, is created by the community, and is thus a logical and just base for taxation.

You might explore Henry George's Single Tax, best laid out in his landmark book, "Progress and Poverty," available online at its dot org.

Steve Clowney