"Proceedings of the 2009 Land Policy Conference."--Cover.

In A Good Tax, tax expert Joan Youngman skillfully considers how to improve the operation of the property tax and supply the information that is often missing in public debate. She analyzes the legal, administrative, and political challenges to the property tax in the United States and offers recommendations for its improvement. The book is accessibly written for policy analysts and public officials who are dealing with specific property tax issues and for those concerned with property tax issues in general.

"Attention to value capture as a source of public revenue has been increasing in the United States and internationally as some governments experience declines in revenue from traditional sources and others face rapid urban population growth and require large investments in public infrastructure. Privately funded improvements by land-owners can increase the value of their land and property. Public actions, such as investments in infrastructure, the provision of public services, and planning and land use regulation, can also affect the value of land and property. Value capture is a means to realize as public revenue some portion of that increase in value through various revenue-raising instruments. This book, based on the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's sixth annual land policy conference in May 2011, examines the concept of value capture, its forms, and applications. The first section, on the conceptual framework and history of value capture, reviews its relationship to compensation for partial takings; the long history of value capture policies in Britain and France; and the remarkable expansion of tax increment financing in California. The second section reviews the application of particular instruments of value capture, including the conversion of rural to urban land in China, town planning schemes in India, and community benefit agreements. The third section focuses on ends instead of means and examines the use of value capture by community land trusts to provide affordable housing, the use of land development to finance transit, and the use of various fees to fund airports. The final section explores potential extensions of value capture mechanisms to tax-exempt nonprofits and to the management of state trust lands in the United States."--Publisher's website.

Charitable nonprofit organizations, including private universities, nonprofit hospitals, museums, soup kitchens, churches, and retirement homes, are exempt from property taxation in all 50 states. At the same time, these nonprofits impose a cost on municipalities by consuming public services, such as police protection and roads. Payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) are payments made voluntarily by these nonprofits as a substitute for property taxes. In recent years, municipal revenue pressures have led to heightened interest in PILOTs, and over the last decade they have been used in at least 117 municipalities in at least 18 states. Large cities collecting PILOTs include Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Boston has one of the longest standing and the most revenue productive PILOT program in the United States. PILOTs are a tool to address two problems with the property tax exemption provided to nonprofits. First, the exemption is poorly targeted, since it mainly benefits nonprofits with the most valuable property holdings, rather than those providing the greatest public benefit. Second, a geographic mismatch often exists between the costs and benefits of the property tax exemption, since the cost of the exemption in terms of forgone tax revenue is borne by the municipality in which a nonprofit is located, but the public benefits provided by the nonprofit often extend to the rest of the state or even the whole nation. PILOTs can provide crucial revenue for certain municipalities, and are one way to make nonprofits pay for the public services they consume. However, PILOTs are often haphazard, secretive, and calculated in an ad hoc manner that results in widely varying payments among similar nonprofits. In addition, a municipality's attempt to collect PILOTs can prompt a battle with nonprofits and lead to years of contentious, costly, and unproductive litigation. For this policy focus report, authors Daphne A. Kenyon and Adam H. Langley have researched the continuing policy debate over property tax exemptions among municipalities and nonprofit organizations, and they offer the following recommendations. PILOTs are one revenue option for municipalities. They are most appropriate for municipalities that are highly reliant on the property tax and have a significant share of total property owned by nonprofits. For example, a Minnesota study found that while PILOTs could increase property tax revenue by more than ten percent in six municipalities, there was negligible revenue potential from PILOTs for the vast majority of Minnesota cities and towns. Similarly, PILOTs are not appropriate for all types of nonprofits. PILOTs are most suitable for nonprofits that own large amounts of tax-exempt property and provide modest benefits to local residents relative to their tax savings. Municipalities should work collaboratively with nonprofits when seeking PILOTs. The best PILOT initiatives arise out of a partnership between the municipality and local nonprofit organizations, because both sectors serve the general public and have an interest in an economically and fiscally healthy community. In some cities, case-by-case negotiation with one or several nonprofits is best, as is the case between Yale University and New Haven. In cities with a large number of nonprofits, such as Boston, creating a systematic PILOT program can promote horizontal equity among tax-exempt nonprofits and raise more revenue than negotiating individual agreements.

Issues and themes / Gregory K. Ingram and Yu-hung Hong -- Public actions and property prices -- Restricting residential construction / Edward L. Glaeser -- Regulation and property values in the United States : the high cost of monopoly / John M. Quigley -- Commentary / Katherine A. Kiel -- The efficiency and equity of tiebout in the United States : taxes, services, and property values / Thomas J. Nechyba -- Commentary / Daphne A. Kenyon -- The economics of conservation easements / Andrew J. Plantinga -- Commentary / Kerry Smith -- The importance of land value in today's economy -- The value of land in the United States : 1975-2005 / Karl E. Case -- Commentary / Stephen Malpezzi -- Urban land rents in the United States / David Barker -- Commentary / Robin Dubin -- Land and property taxation -- Land value taxation as a method of financing municipal expenditures in U.S. cities / Richard W. England -- Commentary / Robert M. Schwab -- Taxing land and property in emerging economies : raising revenue . . . and more? / Richard M. Bird and Enid Slack -- Commentary / Miguel Urrutia -- Urban development and revitalization -- Asia's urban century : emerging trends / Rakesh Mohan -- The U.K.'s experience in revitalizing inner cities / Peter Hall -- Commentary / Jody Tableporter -- Hopeful signs : U.S. urban revitalization in the twenty-first century / Eugnie L. Birch -- Commentary / William C. Apgar -- New developments in land and housing markets -- Community land trusts and affordable housing / Steven C. Bourassa -- Commentary / Stephen C. Sheppard -- Multiple home ownership and the income elasticity of housing demand / Eric Belsky, Xiao di Zhu, and Dan McCue -- Commentary / Michael Carliner -- Brazil's urban land and housing markets : how well are they working? / David E. Dowall -- Commentary / J. Vernon Henderson -- Contributors -- Index -- About the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.