In the US property taxes largely go to fund public schools, local police/fire/emergency medical service, parks, roads, sewer, water, and trash collection.

Generally the amount you need for such services is more a function of how much non-vacant land you have in the area than how much vacant land, so unless switching to just taxing vacant land was accompanied by some tax on something else to cover the aforementioned things it would not work very well.

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HPsquared 7 months ago | parent [-]

The fairest system would be a flat tax per person, surely. Each person will use a pretty average amount of state resources. It's expensive to live in California, after all.

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grakker 7 months ago | parent [-]

I can remember when people actually advocated for a flat tax with a straight face. Freaking hilarious idea supported by shallow thinkers.

	▲	vidarh 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		It wouldn't surprise me, though I've usually seen that applied as a reductio ad absurdum to show that the notion of a flat percentage as "fair" is arbitrary because surely a flat tax would be even fairer - on the basis that it highlights how flattening out the tax curve can make the burden on the poorest unsustainable.