[ItsMonkk]

This is why we're starting occasionally to use the term "location value" instead of "land value". When we are taxing the land, what we are really accomplishing most of the time is taxing the positive externalities that your city is providing, as well as that or your neighbors and businesses.

Building the aqueduct, or a city building a train terminal, both provide positive externalities for the entire region. Those externalities should be taxed.

The soil quality or clearing of forest itself is an improvement much the same way a house is, so that would not be taxed.

[s1artibartfast]

This all assumes that it is moral and just to try to capture the value of positive externalities.

I fundamentally disagree on grounds of consent and equity.

It is one thing to recoup costs and upkeep for a collectively endorsed project. It is entirely different to claim and capture perpetual dividends on the positive externalities.

If a city builds a train terminal, the citizens pay for it once in taxes and bonds. The city should not be able to extract further value beyond upkeep. After investment costs are covered, the entirety of the benefit should belong to the people.

How many times over is it equitable to expect citizens to pay for a project?

This is the difference between non-profit and rent-seeking behavior, and I think governments should ask more as a non-profit.

This is why use and service taxes are far superior for taxing benefit.

[ItsMonkk]

That's preposterous and I can easily prove why. Do you think it is just and fair that once a factory makes back its cost that it should then go profit free? Of course not. So there must be something different between public and private organizations. But train stations need not be public only - Japanese train stations are owned by companies. Just because something is done by the public does not fundamentally change anything about it. It's just a different source of funds.

The true unjust behavior is the monopolization of land, land that through many inheritences and sales ultimately comes from force and violence. Us Georgists understand that monopolization of land is a good thing, and allows much further uses that an anarchist model would allow, but you need to pay your fair share.

After investments are covered, the entirety of the benefit DOES belong to the people. Ultimately those taxes are coming back to the citizens the way that the citizens decide is the best use of them.

And this is before we get into how the bad incentives produce all sorts of car-centric and SFH-centric developments, as those waste the most amount of land, and the more the land is wasted the more it costs. Rising costs allow the speculator to buy even more land to waste. This eventually makes those train stations unviable, which hurts everyone.