Rents & Taxes

Rent, Verb.

"payment for use of property," mid-12c., a legal sense, originally "income, revenue" (late Old English), from Old French rente "payment due; profit, income," from Vulgar Latin *rendita, noun use of fem. past participle of *rendere "to render" (see render (v.)).

Also from past participle of middle english to "rend or tear", garment, property, possessions. Rent and taxes are related terms.

tax (v.)

c. 1300, "impose a tax on," from Old French taxer "impose a tax" (13c.) and directly from Latin taxare "evaluate, estimate, assess, handle," also "censure, charge," probably a frequentative form of tangere "to touch," from PIE root *tag- "to touch, handle." Sense of "to burden, put a strain on" first recorded early 14c.; that of "censure, reprove" is from 1560s. Its use in Luke ii for Greek apographein "to enter on a list, enroll" is due to Tyndale. Related: Taxed; taxing.

Economic Rent

Rents are taxes on property. Taxes are rents assessed by tax collectors, public or private. In ancient times there was no difference. The lord and master of a property, whether a Squire, Baron, Count, King or Empire, collected rents as taxes owed him as owner. During the medieval times, ownership was usually a contract between the person who lived on a property and the government, embodied in a person. During the enlightenment, property owners conned governments into separating simple ownership from government. They did this by creating central banks and privatizing ownership of land. This allowed Lairds and lords alike to evict millions of peasants from their property to raise sheep or otherwise find more economically productive industry. A landlord could go broke not putting his property to such use, and both broke former lords and evicted peasants emigrated. It wasn't just the nobility. When you read books like Jane Austen you find the "gentry" figured their social status based on how much rent they could collect from property they owned. (See Piketty).

Walling Economics from Politics

In the United States, the landlords had to be more clever. They learned early on that they couldn't just march into a frontier town and take their taxes. That sparked locals to form "Regulator Militia", so they mainly endeavered to wall off economics from politics and use their rental income to influence local and general government. It is no accident that it took a civil war to end slavery. It only didn't end sooner because it became economically valuable. Both the slave and the people empoverished by the best land being in the hands of landlords were paying a premium to landlords for the fact that they owned the more valuable property. Owning valuable property was the source of wealth for the few. Property taxes mainly made it easier for the already powerful to keep their property and force work out of small holders. This system, by its design concentrates wealth due to premiums in the form of unearned economic rent from the mere privilege of owning the more valuable property.

Natures Tax Collector

Henry George assessed the value of rent from property ownership as making the property owner "nature's tax collector." He knew that simply owning valuable property was a source of unearned premiums. Basically property owners are collecting a private tax when they rent property or successfully speculate on property. They have a right to keep "wages of intendency" & a duty to collect and invest the income necessary to maintain or improve their property. They do not have an inalienable or absolute right to aggrandize valuable property, because land ultimately belongs as “natures bounty” in commons between a sovereign and those who work or live on it. An owners right to rent property is tied to "the sweat of the brow" used to keep that property healthy.

Premium from simple ownership versus earned premiums

Economic rent is a premium a person gets for owning something valuable, having a degree, land, buildings, owning stock, owning a business, company, etc... and employing people to use that property. Henry George made a valid distinction between property taken, borrowed, or owned from natures finite bounty and property that is lived on, productive and tended. The reason he did this is that the premium from simply owning part of natures bounty is unearned. Additionally, if one has valuable property, the premium from working that property is not entirely earned. Henry George called properties belonging to "natures bounty" "land", by land he also included Oil, Gas, Coal, though because his supporters came from oil, gas & coal interest that would be obfuscated after his death. He used the word "economic rent" to describe such premiums from working land, employing labor, owning property & renting properties. He described them as premiums and avoided calling them income because he knew property owners would try to confuse the two. After he died they did.

Earned and Unearned Income

If one performed any kind of labor, one has earned one's income. If one earns a premium from simple ownership of property or privilege, that income, some or all of it is unearned. Earned income also comes from when one improves property by one's effort. Such productive property, tools, plant, factories, raw materials, are capital. In the Georgist formulation the three factors are labor, natures bounty (Land) and capital. Capital should not be confused with land when calculating unearned premiums from property ownership. High Rents in Manhattan reflect the valuable monopoly that is land there. The buildings themselves are capital. The way you tell is that the buildings need constant maintenance, sustainment and refresh, to retain their value. That maintenance, sustainment and refresh is earned. Any value over those costs is economic rent.

Progressive Taxation

No one should be taxed on gross income no matter the source. No one should be harmed by taxes, nor should taxes lead to depreciation of properties real value. Taxes should always be figured on net income and net premiums. If a landlord or building manager tends the buildings he manages. All those costs are justly part of the rent he/she charges tenants. Taxes on land value should fall on the premiums gained from owning the property. Thus the rentier should pay progressive taxes on the economic rent he/she receives. One can link the zero tax rate to a calculated poverty level and allow cost of transport, food consumption, maybe donations, and personal shelter costs to go untaxed completely. One then sets up a system where no one pays taxes on that portion of income. But anyone making more than that pays maybe 10% of the net above that amount.

zero tax on net income less than 40K$.

Say:

10% on net income more than 40,000 (40K$) and less than say 100k$,

20% on net income over 100K$ and less than 200k$

30% on net income over 200k$ and less than 1M$

40% on net income over 1 Million (1M$) and less than 10M$

50% on net income over 10M$ and less than 100M$

60% on net income over 100M$ and less than 1 billion$

70% on net income over 1 Billion dollars

... And index these rates to inflation. These are just examples for discussion.

If one performs some kind of labor or work, one has earned at least part of that premium. If one's premiums are privileged, not all of it. The underlying principle goes back to the middle ages; “Do your duty or pay a duty”

Modern Money and Progressive Taxation

We privatized ownership markets (stock markets) and money, long ago. But the constitution gives government sovereignty over our money supply. The Federal Reserve only makes sense as an arm of the Treasury. As a private bank, it has too much power to engage in mischief. Wealthy people live on rents from owning banknotes and debt. When the economy does well they do well. When it collapses they take property from both workers and capital, but they and the rest of the rentier class wind up wealthier than before the crisis started. At this point the business cycle is an intentional feature not a bug in our system and is an instrument for taking wealth from working people, in other words, exctracting economic wealth using debt.

Money as debt is not innocuous. Federal notes are useful backed by token money. Backed by government debt, they are a means to extract rents from tax payers. Backed by personal or corporate debt, they are time bombs. Avoiding risk is avoiding responsibility.

Public Capital

The Fed should be supporting public capital (highways, railroads, transport in general, communications and energy) thru supporting local and federal government solvency. Not enforcing "balanced budgets" that treat capital and natures bounty as if they were merely costs. The current system treats cities and states as less important than banks, GM, Ford, etc.... This is a worldwide phenomenom as the system of States are continuously held accountable for doing the right thing. The current system is based on extorting companies by stripping sovereinty from them over their own finances.

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