It is only needed by those that pay that specific tax (landowners).
'Only'?
In Hong Kong, up to 35% of government income comes from a 'land rental'. This is a land value tax in all but name, and is due to the fact that the British only leased much of Hong Kong from the Chinese, and therefore only offered long 'Crown Leases' rather than the absolute title of freeholds.
Likewise in Denmark, up to 30% of tax - in this case local taxes - were land rental based. This proportion has declined since the privileged classes took power, capped the tax, and let the Danish property boom rip. The Danes were never as badly hit by the property bubble as many other nations, because their rented sector is, I understand, only surpassed as a proportion of overall housing, by Germany.
These examples demonstrate that the potential basis for what is essentially land-based money (ie government credit backed by land taxation)is massive.
Another way of looking at it is that more than two thirds of our existing deficit-based money was created by private banks as interest-bearing mortgage loans and is therefore deficit-based but property-backed.
Only part of this is land backing, of course, and much of it is backed by (depreciating) bricks and mortar etc.... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
In Hong Kong, up to 35% of government income comes from a 'land rental'.
So is it not better - for the currency - to be based on 100% of tax value then 35%? A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
But it's all relative, since you would be looking at how many year's worth of tax revenues could be monetised.
Such a land-backed State issued currency would principally be domestically acceptable or 'fungible'. Note here that I do not advocate any issue of currency by a State, since I regard State intermediation as just as much obsolete as private intermediation.
I would expect a currency based upon energy - and if an intermediary State is involved, upon a carbon levy/tax - to be another currency acceptable domestically. This would also be fungible beyond a country's borders within a suitable international clearing union.
But there's a difference between a currency - eg money's worth - and the value standard by which currencies are exchanged on credit terms.
Unfortunately the deficit-based currencies we are used to are not based upon tax revenues at all (except bank notes and coin) but are privately manufactured credit objects with very little value behind them at all. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
