Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/519

 SOME INEQUALITIES IN LAND TAXATION 499

to the situation which exists today among Minnesota farm owners, this question arises : Is this level assessment which dis- regards, in part or wholly, the values of buildings and improve- ments the best and most equitable method of levying taxes on realty owned and controlled under existing circumstances ? In answering this question no one should fail to distinguish the import of the condition above set forth. The complete theories of Mr. George call for a social order quite at variance with the one which now exists. Under it land would be held and trans- ferred under conditions very different from anything of which we have practical experience today. The question is not, then : Would a level assessment under the conditions described by Mr. George be the best one? It is: Is the level assessment — an assessment that regards land values and disregards the values of improvements — the best under existing conditions? If it is, it must lay the fewest obstacles in the way of the poor man striving to gain the ownership of a farm or home, or to create such a farm out of the wilderness. But to levy on a farm of 160 acres, with few improvements and worth in the markets of the day only S750, as heavy taxes as on a farm of the same size and selling for 83,000, as is done in numberless cases in Minnesota, is to lay, under existing social and economic conditions, unjust as well as heavy burdens upon the poor owner of poor land. It places the heaviest load of taxes upon the man starting out in the struggle for industrial progress, and relieves the man who by his accumulation has won a certain degree of financial inde- pendence. It makes it more difficult for the poor man in debt for his farm to pay for the same. The facts collected by the Minnesota Bureau of Labor, while they do not in the least throw light upon the relative benefits for the toiler, under the existing social system, and under such a system as Mr. George has pic- tured, do demonstrate this truth: they prove that with land ownership, under the existing social order, an assessment which considers land values, and not the value of improvements, is the worst possible method of raising public revenues. It doubles the share of tax to be paid by the poor man starting in life, and brings to him no corresponding or compensating benefit. The