[mattgibson]

Given it's an auction mechanism, it's hard to stop people offering to pay for the land they want. The options seem to be either allowing that money to flow into private hands so someone gets a free lunch, or to capture it as tax, enabling all other taxes to be reduced or eliminated. The latter seems fairer to me as it eliminates the free lunch and keeps people's earnings in their own pockets via e.g. eliminating income tax.