What is "single tax"

Single tax \Sin"gle tax`\ (Pol. Econ.) A tax levied upon land alone, irrespective of improvements, -- advocated by certain economists as the sole source of public revenue.

Whatever may be thought of Henry George's single-tax theory as a whole, there can be little question that a relatively higher assessment of ground rent, with corresponding relief for those who have made improvements, is a much-needed reform.
--A. T. Hadley.

n. a system of taxation in which a tax is levied on a single commodity (usually land)

A single tax is a system of taxation based mainly or exclusively on one tax, typically chosen for its special properties, often being a tax on land value. The idea was proposed independently by John Locke and Baruch Spinoza. The French physiocrats later coined the term impôt unique because of the unique characteristics of land and rent.

Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert and Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban also recommended a single tax, but unlike the physiocrats, they rejected the claim that land has certain economic properties which make it uniquely suitable for taxation, so they instead proposed a flat tax on all incomes.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, a populist single tax movement emerged which also sought to levy a single tax on the rental value of land and natural resources, but for somewhat different reasons. This "Single Tax" movement later became known as Georgism, a proposal for a simplified and equitable tax system that upholds natural rights and whose revenue is based exclusively on ground and natural resource rents, with no additional taxation of improvements such as buildings. Some libertarians advocate land value capture as a consistently ethical and non-distortionary means to fund the necessary operations of government, with surplus revenue to be equally distributed to all members of society as a universal, guaranteed basic income traditionally called the citizen's dividend. (See bleeding-heart and geolibertarianism)

There have been other proposals for a single tax concerning property, goods, or income. More recently others have made proposals for a single tax based on other revenue models, such as the FairTax proposal for a consumption tax and various flat tax proposals on personal incomes.