Quote from: ShireSilver on March 29, 2014, 03:00:27 PM

IMHO one of the most important criteria is what sort of collection system will be used.

With a land tax (and to some extent a more general property tax) the things being taxed are very public and well defined. The taxing authority has a database of the property being taxed and knows who the owners are. It needs these in order to defend the ownership rights in the first place. If someone doesn't pay their taxes, they can be allowed to stay on the property (if it is their domicile) until they die, with a lien being placed on the property.

On the other hand, most other forms of taxation are significantly easier to avoid. This is a bad thing because their ease of evasion leads directly to more invasive enforcement techniques. A sales tax, for example, ends up requiring a virtual police state where business owners become tax collection agents. A business owner who finds out a competitor is not collecting/paying all their taxes can report them, harming their competitors. Tax agents need to be granted the ability to look into everyone's business to ensure no one is avoiding their "fair share". Income taxes are one of the worst in this regard, requiring everyone to open their personal books up to tax collectors.

If your tax system requires a police state, that is pretty bad indeed.

That's strange... I pay sales tax virtually every day and I don't live in a police state...

In fact, based on your argument, most of the world is living in a police state:

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/country-list/sales-tax-rate