Reply #33: Having to pay property tax encourages people to put it to economic use.

[AP]

If you don't, then you lose money year over year.

American has entire body of law -- adverse possession -- which tries to do the same thing because he learned from the UK, where they don't have adverse possession, that if you allow people to hold a great deal of land without forcing them to do anything with it you hurt the economy by, for example, not creating jobs, not growing crops, not building homes, and not allowing people who do want to work the land to be able to hold it and use it.

If you didn't have property tax you reduce a big compulsion to make sure that you use your property to generate income.

Also, it's a good way to tax accumulated wealth that isn't transferred -- and there's a lot of wealth accumulate in land that doesn't turn over very often. And it's usually the rich who hold the most land.

It's always good to encourage money changing hands, because that ensures that people who are working the hardest at any given moment have a good chance of accumulating wealth. Again, property taxes create a disincentive for NOT circulating wealth and not making it change hands.

(I don't think people moved west because of property tax. They moved west because they wanted to work the land and make a living.)