taxes – The Menace of Privilege

Tax favors for owners of “farmland”

Continuing our exploration of land values and real estate taxes in Cook County …

parcel #06364020270000, at 1830 Lake St in Hanover Park — Parcel #06364020270000, at 1830 Lake St in Hanover Park. 7.36 acres, adjacent to a residential area and virtually across the street from a Metra station. Due to favors done for class 239 farmland owners, it pays less than $200/year in property tax.

The County contains 813 parcels coded as class 239 “non-equalized land under agricultural use, valued at farm pricing.” An explanation of how farms are supposedly assessed is included in this document, page 12 of which states:

The assessor notes each of the farm’s land use categories and uses the equalized assessed value for each soil productivity index to determine the assessed value. The assessor may make some subtractions for things like slope, drainage, ponding, flooding, and field shape and size before calculating the final value.
• The portion on which crops are planted is assessed at the state-certified equalized assessed value certified by the Department for the corresponding soil productivity index.
• Permanent pasture is assessed at one-third of what would be assigned if it was planted in crops.
• Other farmland (e.g., forestland, grass waterways) is assessed at one-sixth of what would be assigned if it was planted in crops.
• Wasteland has no assessed value unless it contributes to the productivity of the farm.

For Cook County, the Assessor provides specifics here.

The total assessed value of these 813 parcels is $2.25 million. To calculate their acreage it seems I would have to retrieve the records manually and individually, but the 2022 Census of Agriculture says the County contains 154 farms totaling 10,281 acres. (A farm might comprise several parcels). This implies an assessed value of $218/acre. Reviewing a small sample of parcels, it appears that the Assessor values most class 239 parcels at $2250/acre, and assesses them at 10% of that, or $225/acre.

One might compare this to the Illinois Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers’ report, which includes but doesn’t break out Cook County, and indicates sales prices in Northeastern Illinois range from $5500 to $40,000 per acre.

There’s no minimum parcel size for a “farm” under class 239. Thus, we have a series of 18 small vacant lots in Matteson: 31-20-218-001-0000 thru 31-20-218-018-0000. All of these appear to be empty lots, awaiting the construction of houses. Eight of them are classified as vacant land, with assessed values ranging from $5392 to $7953 (differences apparently due to differing sizes). Taxes due on these in 2024 range from $2351 to $3467 (excluding overdue taxes from the prior year, but including interest charged). But ten of these similar lots are class 239, farmland, assessed at $50 to $84. The County issues tax bills of zero for these parcels. This is claimed to be due to 35 ILCS 200/18-40, which states

If the equalized assessed value of any property is less than $150 for an assessment year, the county clerk may declare the imposition and collection of all tax for that year to be extended on the parcel to be unfeasible and cancelled. No tax shall be extended or collected on the parcel for that year and the parcel shall not be sold for delinquent taxes.

However, these parcels are assessed at $50 to $84. Applying the equalization factor of 3.0163 results in EAV greater than $150. In response to my inquiry, the Cook County Treasurer explained that, even tho equalized assessed valuation is printed on the tax bill, it isn’t used for taxation of farm properties. Here are the 18 parcels:

table of data — 18 vacant lots in Matteson

I don’t know why 10 of these properties are assessed as farmland while 8 are not.

Countywide, the 813 class 239 parcels have a total assessed value of $2,251,552. While the Assessor’s records are imperfect (there being, for example, no “Dundee” municipality in Cook County), it appears that only 37 of the County’s municipalities (plus a few unincorporated areas) contain class 239 parcels. The tally is shown in the following table. Keep in mind that these are assessed value, 1/10th or less of the actual market value.

table showing class 239 parcels in Cook County — Summary of Class 239 parcels by place

While class 239 is a great bargain for owners of “farmland,” the inequity doesn’t seem, by itself, to have a major effect on the financial condition of the taxing bodies. For example, Ford Heights has the largest number of class 239 parcels, 114. Total class 239 assessed value in Ford Heights is $35,496. If this land was subject to equalization like other parcels, the equalized assessed value would be $107,067. As noted above, the Assessor seems to undervalue class 239 parcels, but even if we assume undervaluation of 75%, the total EAV of these parcels would be $428,268, for a net increase of at least $392,772. (I say “at least” because some or all of the class 239 parcels may be assessed at less than $150 and therefore completely untaxed.) The latest report I can find for Ford Heights total EAV, from 2022, is $14,201,062. Thus, if my assumptions are correct, and tax levies don’t change, then the typical property owner would save just 2.76%, Longer-term, landowners might be encouraged to develop their parcels, with housing or other improvements, so the benefit over time might be greater and might not only be financial. There would be no expense to the Village or other taxing bodies.

And of course the captioned illustration at the top of this post, 7+ acres in desirable Hanover Park, easy walk to Metra, adjacent to residential areas (or suitable for retail/commercial use), takes advantage of class 239 to pay taxes of less than $200/year.

[Still more to come.]

Cook County contains 59,886 vacant taxable land parcels

A vacant lot (source: Cook County Assessor)

The current locally assessed value of these 59,886 parcels totals $490.23 million. By ordinance, these assessments are 10% of what the Assessor estimates to be the market value of these parcels, implying that they’re worth $4.902 billion. Of course there’s also a “multiplier” of 3.0163, meaning the taxable value is $490 million X 3.0163 =$1.478 billion. Tax rates vary around the County, but in Chicago currently (before expected increases) is 7.02%. Meaning that owners of vacant land need to pay $1.54 billion X 7.02% = $103 million.

The County Board decided that vacant land, like residential real estate, should be assessed at 10% of estimated value. Commercial and industrial land is assessed at 25% of value (with exceptions for special favors). The Board could, by ordinance, apply this 25% factor to vacant land also. Which would raise something like $490 million X 1.5 X 3.0163 X.0702 = $155 million/year. Without taxing any housing; without taxing any business. Without taxing anybody who can’t afford to own land. Now $155 million may not seem like a lot, given that the City of Chicago is running something approaching a $1 billion annual deficit, Chicago Public Schools hundreds of millions more, and of course many suburban Cook County taxing bodies are in deficit. But $155 million is just the start.

If you are owner of a vacant lot, and you receive notice that your taxes have more than doubled, what will you do? You could sell the lot, but who would buy it? Probably somebody who wants to build housing, or a commercial business, or something else that serves the community. Or you might decide to build something yourself. Either way, this contributes to better housing supply or increased job opportunities.

Also, that $155 million/year is just for actual vacant lots, coded by the Assessor as class 100. There are also 25,180 parcels labeled as “vacant land under common ownership with adjacent residence” (class 241), also assessed at 10%. These are assessed at $123 million. By the same calculation as we used for vacant lots, assessing these like other nonresidential property could yield an additional $39 million, and some of the parcels would be used for new housing (including accessory dwelling units) or other useful projects.

This amount of revenue is not going to solve all the financial problems of Cook County local governments, but it would be a start, would cost practically nothing to implement, and would have the side benefit of increasing jobs and housing.

Many vacant lots are not taxable, because they belong to the City of Chicago or other government agencies. The above calculations omit such lots. DePaul’s Institute for Housing Studies has examined vacant land in Chicago, including City-owned parcels, and provides some analysis here.

This is not a complete remedy for Chicago’s and Cook County’s financial (and other) difficulties. But it should be an element in any plan to achieve prosperity and justice.

[More to come.]

Tribune and “Illinois Answers” explain why value of improvements should be excluded from assessments

“Cook County assessor misclassifies hundreds of properties, missing $444M in one year alone,” says the Chicago Tribune. The report is joint with Illinois Answers. $444 million is a lot of money, about 1/2 of 1% of all the assessed value Countywide. And assessment data is public, so the journalists could easily find examples of inconsistencies.

Evidently, Fritz didn’t do as good a job as we wish. The journalists didn’t report any comparable error rates for other jurisdictions; perhaps they couldn’t find any. Some Cook County taxpayers were unpleasantly surprised when, the Assessor having suddenly discovered their improvements, they received big bills for back taxes.

The report includes a chart showing annual number of improved properties discovered and amount of back-taxes billed for each year going back to 2006:

From the Chicago Tribune / Illinois Answers report.

From this it appears Fritz’s record is pretty much in line with the results of prior Assessors. He says there are 1,864,161 taxable parcels in the County, so in his worst year he discovered missed improvements on 0.1% of them.

Note that the Tribune/IAP folks mislabeled the chart; the assessments probably weren’t “omitted,” but the properties were underassessed because improvements weren’t recognized.

The report includes a number of complaints by former County employees and some local officials, essentially agreeing that Fritz did an imperfect job. There’s even a time-series of aerial images of a subdivision in Lynwood, showing very clearly that houses have been built, but didn’t yet show up on the tax rolls. For a village of 9116 people, and their school districts, this subdivision of a few dozen houses might be a significant fiscal consideration. And for the new homeowners, the back taxes will be a burden.

(The report implies that in this case the ball was dropped by the Bloom Township Assessor, an intermediary between Fritz and the municipality. )

The journalists also start, and conclude, their report with the case of one property owner who has experienced serious tax increases and is considering moving out state. Yes, excessive and wasteful government spending, and high taxes, is a big problem here. But fixing assessment errors affecting 0.1% of the parcels will do little to address it.

We could make a couple of observations here.

What if Cook County could drop improvements from the tax base, assessing and levying only on the value of land, what the each parcel would be worth if vacant? Probably none of the problems described in this report could have occurred. And instead of increasing “the number of budgeted field staff from 34 in 2023 to 38 in 2024,” Fritz could have laid off most of the field staff, putting a few to the task of correctly valuing land. He’ll also need (probably already has) somebody to monitor the County Clerk’s Tax Map Department, to be sure parcel boundaries and numbers are up to date.

How does the government’s ability to accurately administer the property tax system compare to the income tax system, or the sales tax system? Nobody knows. While nobody really understands how income taxes work, the revenue agencies release only aggregate data, so we know nothing of any invidual’s situation unless the person chooses to publish her income tax returns, as some politicians do, or somebody violates the rules and liberates confidential information. Even sales tax information for individual taxpayers is largely confidential. To guess how well these taxes are administered, one could search for /IRS agent indicted/ on luxxle or freespoke .

And here’s a report asserting that over a recent 18-month period, more than 1% of Internal Revenue Service employees had “confirmed tax noncompliance issues.” (Apparently most of them kept their jobs.) If 1% of IRS employees are “cheating,” I doubt that the percentage for average taxpayers is less. So it seems that overall, Fritz is doing a better job than the Feds.

Maybe he should ask the State to make his job easier by removing improvements from the real estate tax base.

Three “finalist” proposals for fixing Chicago’s pension mess

We have an article from Crains reporting on the winning proposal for solving the disaster that is the City of Chicago’s pension plans. Of course a new fee is involved, being a toll on DLSD. Article doesn’t disclose how much this toll would be, nor its likely impact on traffic. I suspect that parallel arterials would see increased congestion, while DLSD itself might flow a lot better with reduced traffic volumes.

The two runners-up proposed income tax increases. One would be a 1% income tax on the remaining Chicagoans, to be termed a “public safety tax” and used to fund police and fire departments, freeing up municipal funds to go to pensions. The other proposed raising the State income tax to 6%.

There were originally eight proposals, and perhaps one of the losing five made the logical proposal– a tax on whoever controls on-street parking. Like any real estate tax, this would be based on the value of the control, and should be set such that LAZ Parking can retain just enough profit to operate the system. .The Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman said LAZ grossed $136.2 million in 2021).

A tax collecting most of that annually could make a significant dent in $35.4 billion shortfall recently estimated for the City’s pension funds, tho it couldn’t cover the entire need. And that doesn’t include Chicago Public Schools, Cook County, State of Illinois, and other government pension funds which are in difficulty.

All these proposals come from students at UChicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. Which somehow reminds me of the remark decades ago from Mike Royko, observing that Hyde Park isn’t really part of Chicago, but rather a sixth boro of New York.

Are Cook County property taxes actually paid? Some data from Maria Pappas

Georgists like to say that one of the many advantages of a real estate tax over other taxes is that, if the owner does not pay it, eventually s/he’ll lose the property, which can be sold to pay the arrears. But “eventually” is an important word here.

Now Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas has compiled data showing the extent to which taxes don’t get paid. For this purpose, “not paid” means “not paid within a month of the due date.” I suspect that in most cases, these taxes are eventually paid, with a penalty (9% interest, recently reduced from 18%) included. But years might elapse, and various games can be payed by “investors” regarding these properties. (Some detail is on pages 23-26 of this pdf.)

The reports are broken out by property class, by ward, by municipal area, and by taxing agency, showing amount billed and amount paid, and can be downloaded to spreadsheets.

Countywide, 96% of all taxes billed were collected within a month of the deadline. In the impoverished Village of Ford Heights, only 28.55% of taxes got paid, but no other community had less than 50%. The six lowest percentages are all in the south suburbs, followed by the Chicago community areas of Englewood and West Garfield Park.

For parcels coded as “vacant,” only 71% of taxes were collected; all the other categories were above 95%. Total taxes billed to vacant parcels was $121,810,594, of which $86,873,652 was paid, implying that, were vacant parcels taxed at the same rate as commercial and industrial land, government revenue would increase by something like $130 million to $183 million — not counting the development which such a tax increase would encourage.

Property tax can’t be equitable, Kaegi asserts

former Schulze bakery — Disused Chicago bread factory to become data center. Image credit: Emily CC BY-NC 2.0

In a new article (archived copy, also included in this pdf) for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi asks “In a digital economy, how can cities create a more equitable property tax system?” Of course he does not try to define “equitable,” but one infers from the article that it means “funded more by those benefiting from the digitalization of the economy, and less by those who actually perform useful work.” A desirable result, to be sure, but how does he propose to accomplish it? He also seems to assume that government-funded schools are a good thing, or at least that parents shouldn’t be held individually responsible for arranging their own children’s education.

He proposes to get more revenue from the big infotech companies, specifying Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet/Google, Amazon, and Facebook, but by implication the numerous other organizations who have prospered by taking advantage of the internet (as well as their lobbying capabilities to stifle competitors). He doesn’t think that local or state government is equipped to collect much of this revenue. Further, he assumes that a real estate tax to fund “education” can only be implemented at the school district level, and couldn’t be countywide, regionwide, statewide, or in any respect subnational. He concludes that the U S government needs to send large quantities of money to America’s cities, particularly including Chicago and the rest of Cook County.

“The federal government … is best situated to tax incomes generated by activity like digital commerce, virtual meetings, and footloose service providers [and]…will need to build fiscal mechanisms for a digital world that separates economic activity from physical space. ” (Presumably these wealthy and influential companies won’t use their influence to deflect the tax burden to others. )

OK, so Cook County local governments don’t get revenue from this digital economy? What about the 11 (soon to be 12) data centers in Elk Grove Village (archived copy), paying real estate taxes and utility taxes, as well as taxes imposed on persons working to construct and operate them. This report (archived copy) counts 52 data centers regionwide as of February 2021. Both reports note that several kinds of tax favors are provided, without indicating that they’re necessary since the digital economy requires facilities in appropriate locations.

And Amazon and other on-line retailers don’t generate taxes? Those of us who’ve bought something on line in the past couple years have noticed that the e-commerce giants collect and remit state and local sales taxes, typically in excess of 10% here. Last year the BGA counted (archived copy) 36 warehouses in the Chicago area built for Amazon since 2015 (and noted “at least $741 million in taxpayer-funded incentives”). This of course doesn’t count warehouses used by non-Amazon sellers such as Walmart and Target. Again, it’s likely that most or all of these facilities would have been built without subsidies, since warehouses have to be located appropriately with respect to markets, labor supply, transportation, etc.

Kaegi is legitimately concerned about the fragmentation of Cook County’s tax base, noting that “The lower the value of real estate in a community, the higher the effective rate to provide a comparable level of school services. This results in
great disparities.” But that problem isn’t inherent in the real estate tax; it’s inherent in the fragmentary structure of finance, funded largely by local real estate tax. A statewide real estate tax, such as Illinois had until it was replaced by a sales tax in 1933, could reduce or eliminate the disparities. A number of states retain statewide real estate taxes, but the problem of disparities can also be addressed by a tax-base sharing arrangement, as has operated for half a century in Minnesota.

“[W]e must continue to push for local-school funding that is not rooted in local land values,” writes Kaegi. Actually, if an effective disparity-reduction arrangement is in place, the opposite might be true. I have previously posted a table and map illustrating that, if taxes were based on land value rather than land+improvement value, the burden on homeowners in communities of low income and color would be lessened. And of course if the burden of sales taxes could be replaced by a tax on land value, the benefit to moderate-income households would be enhanced.

So we have an Assessor, running for re-election, who doesn’t believe the taxes he helps calculate are a good way to fund local services. I had hoped for better (but didn’t really expect it), as the quality of assessment seems to have improved during his tenure. He does have one announced primary opponent.

2020 Cook County Property Tax Analysis — sort of

We have a new report from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, subtitled “2020 Cook County property tax analysis: A heavier burden for businesses, Black and Latino suburban property owners.” It’s got more detail than I recall seeing published before, including two decades of total real estate tax revenue countywide and by triad, and (for the past two years only) median taxes per parcel for residential and commercial, by municipality and township (and limited data for Chicago wards) as well as a fun list of the ten highest residential and commercial tax bills for each township. The extra load Cook County’s current classification system places on commercial property is noted.

All of this data for individual parcels has been available on the Treasurer’s web site for some time, but it wasn’t assembled for convenient use.

It’s likely impossible to discuss the real estate tax system (let alone the complete scope of public revenue) in a way which can hold the attention even of people who find themselves heavily burdened by the way government is funded and operated. And Pappas’ office got this information out quickly, as the taxes have only recently been calculated and won’t be due until October 1. All the same, there are problems which one hopes will be fixed next time this is done (and one certainly hopes there will be a next time, soon.)

Noting the continuing rise in revenues, the report asserts that “[t]he bigger tax burden is not being shared equally.” What could this mean? What would be equal? Should we fund government by a poll tax, which is the only way to get everyone to pay the same amount? Perhaps the writer means “equitably,” a desirable thing tho difficult to agree on. It’s then observed that “Property owners in many south suburbs continue to pay far more in taxes than landowners in other parts of the county.” I will set aside the fact that “property” and “land” aren’t the same thing, and assume that the writer may have meant “real estate taxes are higher in many south suburbs than in other parts of the county,” which is sufficiently cautious that it must be true.

But in fact the amount of real estate tax paid by a median homeowner is much lower, less than $4,000/year in Bloom and Thornton townships (page 49 of the statistics section of the report), less than any of the north suburban townships (page 56).

That doesn’t mean that the taxes in Bloom and Thornton aren’t a burden for many, because taxes imposed on struggling people are always a burden. And the very high tax rates reduce market values, while increasing the extra burden on renters (who cannot benefit from the “homeowner exemption.”)

The report makes no attempt to separate the value of land from the value of improvements, even tho the assessments provide this breakout for each parcel. There’s no distinction between owner-occupied and renter-occupied homes. The only mention of vacant land is to say that it’s been ignored, as has mixed-use (residential+commercial) property. There’s no mention at all of exempt government-owned land.

It would be helpful to include reference maps, especially of townships. And in an ideal world, the tables would be offered in spreadsheet format.

Sun-Times report inadvertently helps show the benefits of simple LVT as a revenue source

Image credit: Purple Wyrm CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

According to a Sun-Times report, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi acknowledges that his “Senior Freeze” program, under which old property owners claiming household income under $65,000 can get a big break on property taxes, is “riddled with errors.” Highlighted is a multi-million dollar condo in Water Tower Place, whose owners pay only $2502/year. While it’s certainly possible that these folks might have income under $65,000/year, that seems unlikely, as they also own a Florida condo valued at over $1 million. Their Chicago property apparently also benefits from the temporary removal of toilets during a 2017 remodeling. It seems that the Assessor never noted that the toilets were replaced (or perhaps they were not?)

While the WTP property is clearly an extreme case, the senior freeze program transferred $250 million from owners of 144,904 properties who participate in it to the remainder of the 1.77 million taxable properties (of which 1.6 million are residential) in the County. With the total property tax revenue at $15.6 billion, this amounts to about 1.6 % of total taxes collected. The Sun-Times article provides several other examples of affluent old people who benefit from the program.

Clearly this is a problem of bad policies ((discriminating against renters, the nonelderly, and people who find it difficult to complete simple bureaucratic forms), and taxing improvements), combined with governmental malfunction (Kaegi hasn’t been able to get the program under control, partly because there is no mechanism for the County to verify incomes).

It should not be necessary to mention, but I will mention anyway, that the Sun-Times report relied on property tax data being, for the most part, publicly available. While far worse scandals likely could be found regarding income tax, many of these can’t be documented unless taxpayers “voluntarily” release their information, or it is (probably unlawfully) liberated.

Clobbering fairness more accurately

Where fairness comes from: Cook County Board Pres. Toni Preckwinkle; Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (credit: WBEZ CC BY-NC 2.0 and Wikipedia)

We have a new North Suburban Reassessment Report from Assessor Fritz Kaegi. As a “reformer,” this Assessor publishes a lot more information than his predecessors. In fact, he publishes all the code for his assessment models.

Accurate assessments are said to be important because assessing a property too high can “destroy wealth by diminishing the market value of the property.” Which is true, but do not taxes based on accurate assessments also destroy wealth? What the Assessor seems to mean by a “fair” assessment is an assessment that is calculated in accordance with applicable laws and ordinances. This definition of “fair” comes mainly from our friends in the Legislature and County Board, with some role for other government officials. “Fair” in Cook County means that owners of houses or vacant land should pay taxes at 40% of the rate applied to ordinary industrial or commercial property, unless special favors have been bestowed. In the rest of the State, “fairness” requires rates in the absence of special favors to be uniform. In all areas, “fairness” requires that religious and most nonprofit educational facilities are entirely exempt from tax. Continue reading Clobbering fairness more accurately

Not the first daylight robbery, but a good one

I’ve long considered Dominic Frisby, perhaps the only working comic who’s also a financial writer, to be a Georgist. Several years ago he posted a nice video explaining the land value tax. Now he’s gone deep into a history of taxation and its effects, in Daylight Robbery: How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future Readable and succinct, but somehow by the end Frisby has forgot about his video.

The title is appropriate, so good that over a dozen older books already carry it, but the subtitle may be unique. Frisby asserts quite a few facts new to me, and for the most part provides references (altho some are a bit summary, showing only the domain name such as cbs.com, or time.com, where one might need to search around a bit).

The book starts with the story of Hong Kong, a British colony which prospered thru free markets and lower taxes (The point stands, even tho in recent years external demand pushed housing costs to obscene levels, and in recent months political and governmental interference made conditions even more difficult.) Going thru tax history, Frisby of course discusses the effects of the window tax (“daylight robbery”), and explains why it was considered to be fairer and easier to administer than its predecessor. He tells us about tax revolts and England’s first income tax, all records of which were apparently destroyed (source citation is a two-volume history that I can find only in Latin). He explains the cause of the U S War between the States (which Lincoln waged more for revenue purposes than in any opposition to slavery.) He notes that Hitler was tax-exempt, and the Guardian used a Cayman Islands entity to (apparently legally) avoid taxes.

After lots more stories about taxation and its role in history, moving to modern times, Frisby explains (as if any of us need to know) the burden that taxation of productive activity places on people trying to, well, be productive. He talks about the digital nomads and crypto currencies which make collection of production tax more difficult, and about digital transactions which make the collection easier.

Finally he proposes a Utopian tax system. Is it collection of all economic rent as the sole source of public revenue? Not really. He wants VAT (not to exceed 15%, and including narcotics) and income tax (also not to exceed 15%). So the record-keeping burdens and complexities of those will remain, tho perhaps a bit reduced because the impact of error is less. To these he wants to add L U T (Location Usage Tax), which is basically LVT but with perhaps a clearer name, and which would be set at some percentage of the land rental value. He wants voters to choose the percentage, apparently a single rate nationwide. And since he aims to keep governmental expenditures below 15% of GDP, it’s unclear that there would be any L U T at all.

“The location usage tax does not apply just to land, but to any asset granted by nature — the airspace the mineral wealth, and even the broadcast spectrums.” He doesn’t seem to have any problem with private collection of rent for “intellectual property,” even tho I P is a privilege granted and protected by the government, thus straightforward to track and assess– if there’s any justification for I P at all.

It seems that much of the land in Britain is “unregistered,” in that the owner isn’t known, and in Utopia this will be remedied by identifying every owner. I’m not sure why that’s necessary. A tax bill could be posted for each parcel, and a copy mailed to the owner should s/he request it. After due and repeated notice, If the bill isn’t paid, the land could be taken over by the Crown (or whatever they call it over there), and auctioned to somebody willing to pay the tax. (If nobody’s willing to pay the tax, it needs to be reduced.)

Would I like to live in Frisby’s Utopia? Well, of course here in the U S we have no VAT, and the retail sales tax is generally less than 15%. But income tax can be higher, and we have various other taxes which Frisby proposes to eliminate. And LVT has other benefits in addition to the revenue it generates. So on the whole, it’s a better deal, a step in the right direction. But Utopia? Go back and watch the video.

(Note: This review is of the 2019 edition of the book. The Publisher’s web site indicates that a new edition will be released later in 2020.)