Comment by mothballed
3 days ago
I'm talking about from a practical perspective including respecting domestic privacy, not theoretical bests.
It is difficult to determine the value of a particular piece of land, particularly if it hasn't been sold for a long time and won't anytime soon.
International trade can much easier be priced, and there is no (additional) privacy concern because it all has to be declared anyway.
Tariffs, unless hyperfocused, are dumb.
Indeed, but funding the level of government the constitution authorizes, which shouldn't cost more than a couple percent of GDP, their dumb-ness isn't enough to greatly distort the market and meanwhile there is very little additional overhead or intrusion vs other methods of taxation.
Consumption taxes are very distortive.