Idle land tax to replace income tax

In many parts of the Philippines (and many other countries), there are millions of hectares (out of total land area of 30 million hectares) of idle and underutilized lands. Such lands can be seen not only in the provinces, in the mountains and forest lands, in the hills and the plains, but even in many areas in Metro Manila.

World wars 1 and 2 (and many earlier wars) were mainly a war for new territories, for more land. The Palestinian-Israeli decades-long and continuing conflict is a war for land, for territories. The Philippine communist revolution and insurgency (the Huks in the 40s to 50s, then the NPA from the 60s to the present), is mainly a war for land ownership and control.

Hence, to have millions of hectares of idle lands is a criminal situation, considering that there are 4 million+ unemployed and another 7 million+ underemployed Filipinos in the country, plus several million Filipinos working abroad. Millions of households also have no shelter, and millions of poor households (employed or unemployed) are complaining of high food prices, meaning food supply and production are not sufficient.

Idle and underutilized lands should be penalized with idle land tax, while productive lands, whether for forestry and agricultural plantation or aquaculture, whether residential villages or commercial/industrial/tourism projects, should be rewarded with zero income tax. Note here: idle and underutilized lands are not banned or prohibited and to be confiscated by the state; they will only be taxed. When a land is full of agricultural crops (grains, vegetables, fruits), that means (a) food supply is augmented and increased, resulting in stable and lower food prices, and (b) jobs are created, from manual laborers to agri researchers and marketing people. These alone create welfare for society.

When idle land tax is imposed, owners of idle and underutilized lands will have two options: either develop and improve their lands themselves to escape paying the tax, or sell their lands to other people and investors who can make the land productive. Either way, this will mean more jobs will be created, hence licking the high unemployment, high underemployment problem, and more food/housing/schoolbuilding/shops and other goods will be produced and created.

Government should not penalize productivity with various forms of income taxes; it should not confiscate up to 1/3 of people's income because it (or the politicians) want/s to get the credit of handing out food baskets to poor people. Instead, government should penalize laziness, indolence, and idleness.

There are concerns and questions of "Who decides what is idle and what isn't? What's the difference between a piece of property that is a private nature reserve and idle land? Land lying fallow and idle?"

It is very easy to distinguish idle land from those which are not.
A land full of trees, natural or plantation forest, is not idle.
A land full of rice, sugarcane, bananas, pineapples, mangos, rambutan, pomelo, other agricultural plantation, is not idle.
A land full of houses and villages, golf courses, parks and plazas, is not idle.
A land full of malls and shops, industrial estates and processing zones, is not idle.
A land full of cows, sheeps and goats for grazing, is not idle.

"Full" here is subject to technical and scientific definition. Plant and tree density per hectare varies from one crop to another. For instance, for industrial tree plantation (mahogany, acacia mangium, eucalyptus, gmelina, etc.), a spacing of 4 x 4 meters (or roughly around 625 trees per hectare) is good; some will have 2 x 2 meters spacing (or around 2,500 trees per hectare). For mango trees, a good spacing is around 20 x 20 meters (or only 25 trees per hectare). Agriculturists and foresters can discuss and decide on optimal crop density.

Fallow period (ie, do nothing, let the soil rest for a while) is also easy to detect. Two to three (2-3) months out of 12 months for sugarcane, 4 months out of 12 months for rice, about 6 months for 12 or 15 or 25 years for forest plantation (depending on species planted).

A land full of cogons, makahiya and other grasses with no grazing activities is idle; it should be taxed. A land full of shrubs and vines with no parks is idle; it should be taxed. So you don't need thousands of bureaucrats, lawyers and judges to decide which lands are idle and which ones are not; ahich ones are taxable and which ones are not. Just keep the philosophy: should you tax idleness or productivity? Should you tax indolence and laziness or industriousness? We shouldn't tax both; we should choose only one.

Food production is not the only use or utility of land. Land uses are plenty. If you have surplus food from too much agricultural, aquaculture and animal husbandry activities, then plant or allow more forest trees -- for lumber and poles, for construction and furniture, for community or national parks. Or if you have plenty of food and trees already, have more golf courses, more open spaces for race tracks (cars, karts, motorcycles, bicycles, horses,...), more lakes and rivers for water sports and sports fishing; more land for housing and residential villages, more industrial zones; more and wider roads, rail tracks, etc. Encourage everything except idleness and indolence.

Finally, if we change our policy from taxing industriousness and productivity to taxing idleness and laziness, the government, especially the DENR, will be exposed as the lousiest, laziest, owner and manager of land. Since these government agencies should be subject to tax as well (remember the "rule of law": the law should apply to everyone, no exception!), then the DENR will be forced to privatize those millions of hectares of idle and denuded public land which it itself has allowed to be abused, explicitly or implicitly.