Earlier quoted context omitted.
I became interested in Georgist tax models a few years ago but at one point I came across something that didn't seem to be Georgist exactly but perhaps a later modification that seemed terrifying. The idea was that you were responsible to tell the tax authority what the taxable value of your land was. The catch was that anyone could come and (forcibly?) purchase the land at that price. It struck me as an incredibly d…
The version of that that I recall was from Heinlein's Number of the Beast. The detail he added in his version was that you could reassess your property at any time, but you had to pay 5 years of back taxes at the new value immediately . This means you can sit at a low value until someone comes along to buy you out, but you have to have the money set aside to avoid immediate purchase.
But it perverts the process of sale negotiation in bizarre ways, coupled to the arbitrary 5 year requirement, which has great impact on the economics of it. Consider - if someone really wants to buy your land, and the only way you can say no is by re-valuing higher than their offer (with a big payout to the government), then a large player could force someone out of business with unreasonably high offers - and then pick up their land on the cheap from the liquidators. Every offer/counter-offer would have to backed by a contract to actually make the sale if the other party agrees, with the back taxes only paid when the sale is made. But then what happens when someone plain doesn't want to sell?