With back-to-back wins in Virginia and Kentucky, land value taxation is re-emerging as a viable policy tool.
Big news today: it’s been many years since a land value tax bill has passed in a state legislature, until this past week, where it’s just happened twice; once in Virginia last week and once in Kentucky yesterday.
We also have a proposed Land Value Return policy in Andalusia, Spain, a win in Cook County, Illinois (that’s where Chicago is), the winners of our fellowship, and more, all in today’s Landscape.
Expanding Enablement in Virginia
On April 6th, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed HB 282 into law. The bill passed both chambers with overwhelming majorities, authorizing the cities of Charlottesville, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, and Newport News to voluntarily adopt a split-rate land value tax.
As we covered last month, Virginia has been on a slow march toward LVT for decades, adding cities to the authorized list one bill at a time. HB 282 adds four more, and the unanimous vote signals this is no longer a fringe idea in Richmond.
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Kentucky: From interest to law in half a year
Kentucky’s HB 607 passed the state legislature in late March. The bill, which covers a much broader set of provisions related to local government of Republican priorities, contains a provision enabling metro governments to implement split-rate taxes in their urban service districts. Beshear vetoed the bill on April 13th, but the GOP supermajority overrode that veto on the 14th, and the measure has now become law.
(Ed Note: Read the rest here: https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/two-states-pass-land-value-tax-enablement)