Explainer: Taxing rezoning windfalls (betterment)
In its 2021 budget, the Victorian government announced a new tax on windfall land value gains from rezoning (also known as a betterment tax)This note explains the economic principles behind such a tax, the benefits of applying such a tax, implementation issues that need to be considered, and lessons from the operation of similar taxes elsewhere.Property is, conceptually, a finite bundle of rights. Rezoning grants additional property rights to owners of an existing set of property rights. Those new rights could instead be sold at a market price. A tax on the value gain from rezoning at anything less than 100% is equivalent to selling the new property rights from the community to the current property owner at a discount. Just like selling other property rights from the public to the private sector does not add to market prices in property markets, nor does selling rezoning rights.A tax on rezoning windfalls is uncommon not because it is a bad tax but because it is a good tax.