single tax

single tax

noun

Definition of SINGLE TAX

: a tax to be levied on a single item (as real estate) as the sole source of public revenue

First Known Use of SINGLE TAX

1795

Rhymes with SINGLE TAX

battle-ax, direct tax, disclimax, estate tax, hidden tax, income tax, Japan wax, mineral wax, minimax, nuisance tax, parallax, prothorax, sealing wax, supertax, telefax, to the max

single tax

noun    (Concise Encyclopedia)

Tax on land values intended as the sole source of government revenues, replacing all existing taxes. Henry George proposed the single tax in his book Progress and Poverty (1879). The plan gained considerable support in subsequent decades but was never implemented. Advocates argued that since land is a fixed resource, the income it yields is a product of the economy's growth and not individual effort, and that it therefore can fairly be taxed to support the government. Critics protested that the single tax would take no account of an individual's ability to pay, since there is no correlation between land ownership and total wealth or income.