Land value tax in Australia
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Land value taxation history in the Australia dating back from Henry George[note 1] and Graham Berry[note 2]. Each Australian state has different laws of land tax.
History
South Australia was the first Australian state to introduce a land tax, based on the unimproved capital value of land, in 1884. In 1910, George Allen (first secretary to the Treasury) founded the Land Tax Office to service land taxes at the federal level as a form of wealth tax and as a means to break up large tracts of underutilised land. Over time, the productivity base of the economy diversified from being mostly agrarian at the beginning of the 20th century, but wealth was held in more diverse forms and therefore federal land taxes were already ineffective. Federal land taxes were imposed until 30 June 1952, but still operate at the state/local level.
Usage
Stamp duty
Notes
- ^ Georgist ideas were adopted to some degree in Australia.
- ^ His election manifesto proposed a punitive land tax designed to break up the squatter class's great pastoral properties. The Councillors were sufficiently alarmed to pass a modified version of Berry's land tax bill, despite the urgings of the ultra-conservative former Premier Sir Charles Sladen to reject it outright. Berry, emboldened, next introduced a bill for the payment of members of the Assembly, which the trade unions were demanding so that working class candidates could be elected. Berry "tacked" the bill to the Appropriation Bill so that Council could not reject it without paralysing the Colony's finances. The Council resented this blackmail and at Sladen's urging declined to pass the bill, laying it aside.