LAND TAXES: Ancient Rome's Folly and Foible

Taxes have been around a long time.  They are a necessary evil to fund the basic functions of government.  However, throughout history, there have been example of the oppressive use of taxes.

One tax that can be particularly onerous is real property tax.  Today in Utah, property taxes help fund schools, county, and city government.  However, they are not the sole sources of funding since there are many various taxes that are employed to provide revenue for these entities.  

Since these other taxes exist, property taxes have been moderate in our state when compared to places like Texas, for example, who have increased their property taxes to compensate for a lack of income tax.  The result of increased real property tax in Texas has been a proportional decline in the value of real property in the state.  High tax rates tend to depress value for real property. 

So, is it possible to tax a property so much that it sinks to such a low value that owners will abandon it?  History says yes.  Lets take the example of the most fertile districts of Italy, Campania, and see what happened there.  Edward Gibbon writes:

The agriculture of the Roman provinces was insensibly ruined, and, in the progress of despotism which tends to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended between the sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus. Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey, an exemption [from taxes] was granted in favor of three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and uncultivated land; which amounted to one eighth of the whole surface of the province. As the footsteps of the Barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation, which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the administration of the Roman emperors.

Gibbon, Edward (2011-10-14). History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, All 6 volumes plus Biography

  The Roman Empire in the fourth century found itself in dire straits. The population was declining and few people wanted to volunteer for military duty.  To induce people into military service, they levied taxes to pay their soldiers to serve.  As their military become increasingly ineffectual and undermanned, yet more taxes were levied.  The irony is that the land taxes became so burdensome that owners sought exemption from the tax by allowing the land to become fallow.  This fallow land deprived the nation of wealth and food which would support the existing military and population.  Thus, as Gibbon describes, the tax policy "disappointed its own purpose."  Certainly, a great lesson from antiquity.