The Harberger Tax, also known as "Common Ownership Self-assessed Tax (COST)", is a type of property tax that aims to improve societal welfare by optimising for both investment and allocative efficiency of private property. It proposes a new kind of “partial ownership”, halfway between private ownership and common ownership.[1] The tax is implemented by two mechanisms;
- Owners periodically self-assess their property and pay tax on its value.
- Others are able to purchase the property from the owner at the taxed price at any time, forcing a sale.
First proposed by American economist Arnold Harberger, it was further popularised in Glen Weyl and Eric Posner’s book Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society.[2]
References edit
- ^ Posner, Eric A.; Weyl, E. Glen (10 April 2017). "Property Is Only Another Name for Monopoly". Journal of Legal Analysis. 9 (1): 51–123. doi:10.1093/jla/lax001.
- ^ "Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society". Princeton Alumni Weekly. 2018-03-07. Retrieved 2022-10-16.