[bombcar]

I think the argument is to switch it so things remain the same at first - 10% tax on 100k land is the same as 1% tax on 1m land+improvements. Coincide with an appropriate drop in income taxes and you could get something.

The key would be people agreeing in principle and then boiling the frog over a hundred years.

[TimPC]

The percentages will work out to what they need to be to generate sufficient revenue for government. I disagree fundamentally with the idea you can tweak them independently solely to be fair to certain groups.

The tax on land+improvements is fundamentally different from the tax on land when different users are considered. Large condo buildings are high value improvements so taxing only land value represents a huge savings for them. Single family houses are generally structures worth only a small fraction of the land they are on, often less than 20% so the savings are marginal. If you adjust the land value tax to generate current property tax revenues the buildings will pay less than they do currently and the homeowners will pay more.

I agree you need the whole system, perhaps implemented gradually. If you change just the property tax portion you offer homeowners increased expenses without any benefit.

[bombcar]

That varies widely in different areas - California houses are often not worth the land they’re sitting on but in the Midwest the lot may be worth only about as much as the cost to get sewage and power to it.