Renting LAND should be revenue neutral. Renting use of the building on the land should produce profit.
This creates good incentives, because the more you invest in structure on your land (ie more housing), the lower your effective tax rate is on the profits you generate from renting. $100 land rent, taxed at 95%, vs 100$ land rent + 500$ rent from housing 5 people is taxed at ~16% overall( 95 / (100 + 500)). Although ofcourse being able to house 5 people would require an investment into buildings, so it is not free money, and there is also competition from others who may be able to house 6 for the same building cost and thus maybe only charge 95$ per person.
Also here is a link of a book review that explains these ideas really well.
I guess I'm not understanding how you don't then see the building rent inflate in proportion to the disappearance of the Land rent's contribution to overall profit. It's a trivial case of financial engineering and shell games to implement.
This creates good incentives, because the more you invest in structure on your land (ie more housing), the lower your effective tax rate is on the profits you generate from renting. $100 land rent, taxed at 95%, vs 100$ land rent + 500$ rent from housing 5 people is taxed at ~16% overall( 95 / (100 + 500)). Although ofcourse being able to house 5 people would require an investment into buildings, so it is not free money, and there is also competition from others who may be able to house 6 for the same building cost and thus maybe only charge 95$ per person.
Also here is a link of a book review that explains these ideas really well.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progr...