RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 119 



when it is sold, the former being called the original site value. This 

 site value is determined apart from buildings, good will, matters 

 personal to occupier or owner, occupier's or owner's improvements, 

 etc. From it is also deducted the amount which is due solely to its 

 value for agricultural purposes. 



The undeveloped land duty is charged at the rate of one cent for 

 every 85.00 of the original site value of undeveloped land, i.e., one- 

 fifth of one per cent. This tax is only levied on land which is not 

 built upon or is not used, bona fide, for any business, trade or indus- 

 try other than agriculture; and it is not levied in respect of agricul- 

 tural land where the value does not exceed $250 per acre. The 

 intention and the effect of these duties are to tax profits made in sell- 

 ing land for building purposes. Agricultural land is expressly ex- 

 empted where it does not possess a building value. The increment 

 tax is only payable on the transfer of land, that is to say, when the 

 profit is realized by the vendor. In this way there is a certainty of 

 the collection of the tax. It may be regarded as a tax on the specu- 

 lator and not on the user of the land. Some of the proposals for tax- 

 ing land in Canada are such that the speculator would entirely escape 

 from the tax, and the burden would have to be borne by the person 

 who buys the land to retain and use it.* 



Proposals for Common Ownership of Land 



It is advocated by a group of reformers that the system of pri- 

 vate ownership in land should be changed, by gradual confiscation 

 of the rent under a system of single tax, to a system of common owner- 

 ship, as advocated by Henry George. Even if such a great change 

 is ultimately made, it will still remain true that the proper planning 

 and development of the land will always be essential, and that a 

 sound and equitable method of assessing the value of land and im- 

 provements should be employed. The character of the remedy pro- 

 posed by Henry George, namely, "to substitute for the individual 

 ownership of land a common ownership,"! has caused many who oppose 

 that remedy to ignore or overlook the wisdom and insight showed 

 by Henry George in his analysis of social problems. He clearly showed 

 the evils of speculation and high land values and their effects, in caus- 



* It is just the successful speculator who suffers least of all from any annual 

 tax upon land. The really successful speculator, as evidenced in the remarkable 

 history of land speculation in western Canadian towns and cities during the past 

 few years, holds his land for so short a period and makes such phenomenal gains on 

 his sales, that no annual tax on his land can do more than take the merest fragment 

 of his profits." Dr. Adam Shortt. 



t Progress and Poverty, Book IV, Chapter II — The True Remedy. 



