For Future Use

Joseph Thompson

[Reprinted from an undated pamphlet, Simple Talks on Taxation, published by the author]

... Hey! I think I've got one to stop you land-rental cranks. … You have? Well, shoot. … A big factory knows it's going to get bigger, so it takes on a big piece of land right next to it. … A prudent move. … Yeah. But the land has a high value, so even if they've got no use for it, they gotter pay just as big a tax as if they was using it. … You say it has a high value? … Yeah. Even if it's vacant. … It has a high value because it's in a desirable location? … Sure, but they're on'y holdin' it for later on. … But someone would like to use it, meanwhile, eh? … How could he use it if it was theirs? … They could lease it to him. … Then you people would tax the rent. … Where do you get that? … Why, you fellers are always yellin' "Tax the rent". … Wrong again, boy. … Why? … We fellers are always yellin' for publicly collecting the full rental value. It wouldn't make any difference to the public what the big company did. They could re-rent it, sub-lease it. … Then they'd be landlords like you're always kickin' about. … No. You could call the renting out by the company, a stop-loss. As long as the public was getting the full rental, it wouldn't care what the company did with the land. … But they'd be landlords! … No. They'd really only be a collecting agent for the public. They'd just be trading dollars. There'd be nothing in it for them except just a stop-loss. … How do you make that out? Couldn't they hitch up the rent? … No. Because if they were paying the full rental value, they couldn't expect to get more than that, subletting it. … Oh.