When I was publishing newspapers, one reader sent in a letter complaining that houses were not being appraised equitably.

He suggested that appraising houses by the square foot made the most sense, but conceded that there were difficulties with that. If one house is built on a foundation with a crawlspace and another one is built on a slab, does the crawlspace count as square footage? If you have an unfinished basement, does it get taxed more than a crawlspace? If you have an attic with a floor and stairs leading to it, does it get counted as square footage? What if you have an attic that’s no more than 3′ tall in the tallest spaces, and you have to use a ladder to get there?

Then he proposed a simpler solution. Charge $X for every toilet, sink, shower or tub. A double sink in your kitchen or a double laundry tub is one sink because it shares the same faucet.

If you want to say that it’s not perfect, I’ll agree with that, but it seems like it’s a lot better than what we currently have. (Myself, I’m in favor of using a VAT instead of income tax or real estate taxes.)