On the Neutrality of the Property Tax
评论了Bentick和Thirsk关于财产税是否中性的争论，指出差异源于税基选择（使用价值还是市场价值），而非贴现率。
In a recent issue of this journal there appeared an interesting controversy between Bentick and Thirsk on the neutrality of the property tax (Bentick 1979, Thirsk 1979). The former argues that the property tax is nonneutral with respect to the intertemporal allocation of land, whereas the latter argues that it is neutral and attributes the difference in the results to the choice of the discount rate. This comment points out the following. First, Bentick's result can be derived from Thirsk's basic equation, so that it is inappropriate to attribute the difference in the results to the choice of the discount rate. Second, whether a property tax is neutral or not depends upon whether the value in use or the market value is chosen as the tax base. As Thirsk correctly recognizes, the introduction of a property tax reduces the value of land by the amount of the present value of tax liabilities. Thus we obtain his equation [1], which is reproduced below: