It is important to know that a transfer of taxes to land values has been widely endorsed by well-known authorities in various fields of endeavor.  If the proposal produces so many real benefits, well-known thinkers will surely know about it.

522 endorsements of  land value taxation from well-known authorities have already been published in the pages of Incentive Taxation (3,000 estimated circulation, established in 1974) an eight-times-yearly newsletter devoted to objective news about land assessment taxation.  We have another five hundred or so such endorsements in our files. 

We print below the names and description of some of these endorsers. Note particularly the eight recent American winners of the Nobel Prize in economics who have endorsed this tax reform; they are Milton Friedman, Herbert Simon, Paul Samuelson, James Tobin, James Buchanan, Franco Modigliani, Robert Solow, and William Vickrey. 

The actual words of these Nobel Prize winners are listed in the November 1991 issue of Incentive Taxation (at that time, William Vickrey  was the president-elect of the American Economics Association, but he later won the Nobel Prize). 

See each issue of Incentive Taxation for the direct quotations from these endorsers: 

        City/County Officials - Newton D. Baker (mayor of Cleveland), Joseph Barr (former mayor of Pittsburgh), Russell Conklin (former mayor, Gt. Falls), James Clarkson (former mayor, Southfield MI), Tom L. Johnson (former mayor of Cleveland), report of 13 rural municipal or county councils in Australia, Allentown, Pa. city council study, Councilman Gavan Oakley (former v.p. Aus. Muni. Assn.), Ken Synett (former mayor, Marion, Aus.), Sydney Aus. city council (1966 report), Michael Albert (former Douglas County Board Chairman, Neb.), Ralph Perk (former mayor, Cleveland), W. Magee (former Pittsburgh mayor), John McCulloch, (former Chief Assessor, Johannesburg), Councilman Bennett Rodgers (Pittsburgh), Wilmington City Council (1969 study). 
        Philosophers & Historical Figures - Mortimer Adler, Robt. Andelson (Professor of Philosophy, Auburn University), Charles A. Beard (historian), Louis D. Brandeis (Supreme Court Justice), Nicholas Murray Butler (former President, Columbia University), Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Herbert Asquith (former British Prime Ministers), Winston Churchill, FDR, Eisenhower, John Dewey (philosopher), Paul Douglas (former U.S. Senator from Illinois), Wm. Cobden (19c. free-trade reformer), Ecclesiastes v. 4, Albert Einstein, Fortune Magazine, U.S. GAO, Walter Heller (former chairman, U.S. Council of Econ. Advisers), Ebenezer Howard (father of the garden city movement), Alduous Huxley, Helen Keller, John Kieran (one-time N.Y. Times columnist), Abraham Lincoln, Leviticus XXV, John Stuart Mill, Ralph Nader, Rep. Henry Reuss, Judge Samuel Seabury, Herbert Spencer, Sun Yat Sen, Leo Tolstoi, Dorothy Thompson, Wall Street Journal (3/19/69, 8/21/72, 3/12/85, etc.), Woodrow Wilson, Cecil B. DeMille, Amer. Inst. of Economic Research, Milwaukee Sentinel (2/4/67), N.Y. Times (7 editorials, 1980s), Thos. Jefferson (1785), David Lawrence (former Pa. governor), Theodore Roosevelt, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 
        Others - Albert Fondy (President, Pbg. Teachers, Union - AFL-CIO), Professor Mason Gaffney (agricultural economist), Raymond Moley (former economics professor, Columbia University), Business Week ("The Coming Change in the Property Tax"), Harold S. Buttenheim (former editor of the American City Magazine), Andrew Heiskell (former co-chairman, Urban Coalition), John M. Kelly (Scranton, Pa. realtor), Liberal Party (U.K.), Wm. Wilcox (former Secretary, Pa. D.C.A.).
        Urbanologists - Ray Archer (Asst. Secy, U.S. Dept. of Environment in H.U.D.), John Due (M.I.T., African tax expert), H.W. Eastwood (former Chief Assessor, New South Wales, Aus.), Professor (Columbia) Lowell Harriss (1973 president, Natl. Tax Assn.), Albert Hydeman, Jr. (former Secretary, Pa. Dept. of Community Affairs), Intl. Union of Local Authorities (1974 report), Labor (1973 issue), Local Govt. Assn. (Aus.), Carl Madden (former Chief Economist, U.S. Chamber of Commerce), H.L.J. May (Minister of Local Govt., N.Z.), New South Wales Royal Commission on Local Govt. Finance & Valuation, 1967 report), NYC Special Planning Commission - 1964 report), Pa. State Planning Commission - 1978 report), E.R.A. Seligman (19 c. Columbia professor), Donald Stone (former professor, Carnegie-Mellon University), Karl Falk (past pres., NAHRO), Tax Foundation (10/76 report), Lester Thurow (econ. prof. M.I.T.), U.K. Land Institute Study of Whitsable, U.N. Habitat Conference (1976), U.S. Congressional Research Svce., Urban Land Institute (Research Monograph #12, also #19), Robert C. Wood (former President, Univ. of Mass, former H.U.D. Secy.), A. M. Woodruff (former president, U. of Hartford and real-estate appraiser), Colin Clark (former economics professor, Oxford University), Brevard Crihfield (former Ex. Dir., Council of State Governments), Tom Curtis (former Chairman, Joint Economic Committee of Congress), Richard Doyle (former Indiana state representative). Financial World, Harper's Magazine (May 1968), Dean Gillies (once director of U.C.L.A.'s Real Estate Research Program), Michigan (1976 report), Ted Gwartney (real-estate assessor), James Heilbrun (real-estate tax authority, Robt. Hutchins (former professor, U. of Chicago), R.W. Hewison (Toronto study), Dan. Holland (former M.I.T. prof. of finance), House & Home magazine (Aug. 1960), Arthur D. Little Co. (urban consultants), Modesto CA Chamber of Commerce, Edmund Muskie (former U.S. senator), N.A.R.E.B., 1974 or 1975), Nat. Comm. On Urban Problems, Dick Netzer (N.Y.U. professor, also Brookings Institution), New Republic (1/27/93), official Aus. study (5/73), Omaha study (1970s), Frank Othick (U.K. Land Institute study), Pa. Bur. of Muni. Affairs, Practical Builder, Kaiser Committee report, Quebec report (1976), Raymond Saulnier (former Chrmn., Council of Econ. Advisers), Roy Stauffer (Pa. Chamber of Commerce), Time Magazine (5/71), Royal Commission (U.K.), Pa. Economy League (1996).
        Environmentalists - Louis Bromfield (author), Farm Foundation (1979 report), D.C. Environmental Committee, (1999), David Brunori (1998 study), Md. Sierra Club (study), 1001 Friends of Md., Center for Policy Alternatives, Minnesota Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club (New Columbia Chapter), Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse, U/Md. School of Law, Rachel's Environmental & Health Weekly, Canadian Inst. for Environmental Law & Policy, Toward a Sustainable Chesapeake.

So many well-known endorsers - why didn't they bring about land value taxation in the United States? Primarily because it wasn't their chief reform issue and they didn't know how to implement a land-assessment tax in the foreseeable future.  

This partial yet extensive list reproduced here does show that land- assessment taxation has been looked upon favorably by many experts and well-known people.  Because of space limitations, we mentioned here just 120 of them.  We didn't include all the endorsers we know about, especially the more recent ones, and there surely are others we don't know about.

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We have been advised that we should reprint the actual words of these endorsers, but space limitations preclude that.  Instead, we reprint just one representative quotation, this from the Urban Land Institute research monograph #4, p. 28.  

Referring to land value taxation, "Here surely is a golden key to urban renewal, to the automatic regeneration of the city - and not at public expense."   Of course, counties, school and other special districts, state and national governments can do this also.

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Reminder: feel free to order the report containing 237 summaries of empirical studies on the effects of land value taxation from all over the world, the U.S. included (cost $12 postpaid).  Or you could order the briefer report containing only a representative 22 of these summaries (free, no obligation).