Harberger Tax Explained

The Harberger Tax, also known as Common Ownership Self-assessed Tax (COST), is a type of property tax that aims to improve societal welfare by optimising for both investment and allocative efficiency of private property. It proposes a new kind of "partial ownership", halfway between private ownership and common ownership.^[1] The tax is implemented by two mechanisms:

• Owners periodically self-assess their property and pay tax on its value.
• Others are able to purchase the property from the owner at the taxed price at any time, forcing a sale.

First proposed by American economist Arnold Harberger, it was further popularised in Glen Weyl and Eric Posner's book Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society.^[2]

Notes and References

1. Posner . Eric A. . Weyl . E. Glen . Property Is Only Another Name for Monopoly . Journal of Legal Analysis . 10 April 2017 . 9 . 1 . 51–123. 10.1093/jla/lax001 . free .
2. Web site: 2018-03-07 . Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society . 2022-10-16 . Princeton Alumni Weekly . en.