Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest problem with it as presented in Progress and Poverty (i.e. as a Single Tax to fund the government budget, not some small supplementary levy to fund something like local services) is that the size of the tax bears relatively little relation to the ability of someone to pay it (at least, to pay it without selling their house). Turfing pensioners out of their house because the land it sits on gained in value…
> Turfing pensioners out of their house because the land it sits on gained in value faster than their pension This is a well-known canard. If someone can't pay their tax on a primary residence, you put a lien on the property that becomes enforceable when the ownership changes hands, whether by sale or inheritance. No one gets "thrown out" of their homes.
But that's a minor issue compared with the second part of my post, which is that if a proposed tax reform reduces the tax burden on almost every corporation and high net worth individual (bar a few land speculators and domestic oil well owners), ordinary people have to pay more to the government or get less from the government. LVT might be perfectly viable as a tax, but as a Single Tax replacing the existing set of taxes (which arent exactly optimal from the point of progressitivity to start off with) it's a wealth transfer on an unprecedented scale from people whose wealth is mainly the property they bought (including the land it sits on) to people whose wealth is mainly the shares they own. The latter category is much richer than the former.