Rahul Mehta Gandhinagar LsCandidate
Why now I speak only of Thomas and I have phased out Henry George.
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(1) main reason is - 16 pages vs 500 pages. Mahatma Thomas Paine can be read in 16 page pamphlet Agrarian Justice published in 1797. Whereas Henry George book is over 500 pages.
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(2) Paine was FIRST. He proposed in 1797 and George came in 187
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(3) Mahtma Paine speaks of putting inheritance tax on ALL private land and dividing tax collected equally amongst all citizens. It does not mention renting govt land , minerals , waters , spectrum but they are clearly implied. One can accept Paine , and add two lines that
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(3a) Paine speaks of Inheritance Tax and we instead of Inheritance Tax use annual Wealth Tax.
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(3b) Paine talks of putting tax on all natural wealth and divide equally amongst all citizens. We propose renting govt lands and dividing rent equally, and dividing mineral profits equally , and tax on private land is used only for police courts military and not for distribution.
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The reason for difference is - back in 1797, govt didnt keep much land. All land was auctioned off asap. Whereas in today bharat, govt has huge amount of DEFACTO empty plots even in prime urban areas. Taxing private land before fully renting unused govt land is pointless. So we have proposed SaJaKiBe which focuses on govt plot rents
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Back in 1797, minerals were less valuable compared to land. And mines were also immediately auctioned off for 30 to 90 years and ground rent was taken. Per tonne royalty was not viable in 1797. So instead of just wealth tax or inheritance tax on mines, as was implied in 1797, we have replaced it by per tonne profits
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So Paine has fully established base. We have same same base. We made differences
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Henry George is very complicated. He speaks of land appraisal and distribution is secondary in George. And primary role of wealth tax is govt expenditure.
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My emphasis is opposite. From govt plots , minerals , spectrum , waters , about 65% is distribution and only 35% is for military. All govt expenses come from wealth tax , income tax.
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So using 16 page Thomas is imo sufficient. There is no need for 500 page Henry George.