LAND VALUE RETURN

Explore ideas on property taxation and learn why leaders from Adam Smith to Winston Churchill supported it.

“Much of the inequality in our economy has been the result of rent seeking, because, to a significant degree, rent seeking re-distributes money from those at the bottom to those at the top.”

Joseph Stiglitz
Nobel Prize in Economics, 2001

What is Land Value Return

The “Land Value Return,” also known as the Least Bad Tax, Land Value Tax or historically the Single Tax, all refer to the same core idea — that the value of land comes not just from individual effort, but also largely from the surrounding community and public investment. By collecting this unearned value for public benefit, society can fund shared needs while encouraging fairer, more productive use of land.

Rethinking our Taxation

In San Diego and in many other California cities, fewer and fewer people are able to pay increasing rents, and even fewer can make a down payment on a home and manage a mortgage. Many face the prospect and reality of housing insecurity and homelessness.

Well-intentioned programs from federal to local governments and non-profits fund and support various housing solutions to reverse the tide. However, most public and private housing and homeless advocates agree on one point: we cannot spend our way out of this conundrum.

Land Value Return should be used to generated public revenue in a way that discouraged homelessness and made housing more affordable at the same time?

Land Value Return Vs Property Tax

Most jurisdictions tax both buildings and land at the same rate—but this approach often discourages development and raises housing costs. We propose a better way: tax land value only.
Take a look at how Property Tax and Land Value Return differ, and learn why we support this fairer, more sustainable approach to public revenue.

Traditional Property Tax:

Most Property Taxes consist of two parts; a tax on buildings (“improvements”) and a tax on land – Usually at the same rate.
Traditional property tax penalizes growth by taxing both land and buildings at the same rate. When new construction or maintenance increases a property’s value, taxes rise—making it cheaper for some owners to leave land undeveloped. This dynamic discourages improvement, encourages vacancy and speculation, and ultimately raises housing costs, as the added expense of construction gets passed on to renters and homebuyers.
The result? Fewer homes, lower quality housing, higher rents, and fewer job opportunities.

Land Value Return:

Land Value Return only taxes the value of the land instead of also taxing any development on that land.
Land Value Return flips this incentive. By taxing only the value of the land—not the buildings on it—it rewards investment and development instead of punishing it. Owners are encouraged to make productive use of land rather than holding it idle, while the community recaptures the value created by public infrastructure and growth. The result is more affordable housing, less speculation, and a fairer system that funds shared needs without burdening builders or residents.
Versions of LVR have worked in Pennsylvania, Australia, Singapore, Denmark, and even here in California, where it once funded irrigation districts and helped rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake.

Key Benefits of
Land Value Return

Take a look at some of the key arguments for implementing Land Value Return and how it can create fairer, more sustainable communities.

1. Encourages Efficient Land Use

LVT makes it costly to hold vacant or underused land, motivating owners to build, lease, or sell to someone who will.
By taxing site value—not structures—it rewards improvement, reduces blight, and promotes vibrant neighborhoods.

2. Reduces Inequality and Captures Community-Created Value

Rising land values come from public investment, not private effort.
LVT ensures this wealth benefits the community by returning a fair share of land’s “economic rent” and shifting taxes away from work and production.

3.Simplifies and Clarifies Tax Administration

It does this Because land value depends mainly on location and accessibility, it’s easier to assess and harder to manipulate.
LVT provides a transparent, predictable, and cost-effective alternative to traditional property taxes.

4. Improves Economic Efficiency

LVT creates no “deadweight loss.” It doesn’t discourage work, investment, or innovation—only unproductive landholding. By taxing land alone, it removes penalties on improvement and keeps incentives for growth clear and consistent.

5. Promotes Affordable Housing and Better Public Services

Reducing land speculation helps lower housing costs and supports denser, more sustainable development. Revenue from LVT funds infrastructure and services, creating a positive cycle where investment raises land value and benefits the public.

6. Practical and Gradual Implementation

LVT can be phased in by lowering taxes on buildings while modestly increasing taxes on land.
This smooth transition, paired with public education, builds support for shared goals of affordability, equity, and accountability.

Endorsements

We aren’t the first—and won’t be the last—to support land value taxation. Explore quotes from influential thinkers, leaders, and reformers who call it the fairest source of public revenue.

Tom Paine

1737-1809

Men did not make the earth… It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property… Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.

Leo Tolstoy

1828-1910

Solving the land question means solving of all social questions… Possession of land by people who do not use it is immoral – just like possession of slaves.

Milton Friedman

1976 Nobel prize

In my opinion the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many many years ago

Thomas Jefferson

1734–1826

The earth is given as common stock for men to labor and live on. Wherever in any country there are idle lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.

Winston Churchill

1874–1965

Land monopoly is not the only monopoly which exists … it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly… They are the price which the community pays for the permission to use the land which was originally public property. It is a price which is not merely unearned by, but positively detrimental to the general public.“

Abraham Lincoln

1809–1865

An individual, or company, or enterprise requiring land should hold no more than is required for their home and sustenance, never more than they have in actual use in the prudent management of their legitimate business, and this much should not be permitted when it increases and exclusive monopoly.

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