> Of course it will distort choices and leave some people worse off. If the author can't see that, then they have a serious bias problem. The whole point of the land value tax is to tax land to encourage higher density and higher cost use.

Under our current system we subsidize low value land uses by subsidizing the crap out of infrastructure to expansions of suburban areas zoned for single family homes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

The only revenue positive portion of nearly any modern american city/town are the few sparse walkable mixed use neighbourhoods and the dense urban core. Policies like a land value tax that push for higher value land uses are necessary to stave off the oncoming wave of municipal bankruptcies America faces.

> Income tax would only provide a disincentive to work if the alternative (assistance programs) is more attractive.

You are thinking in absolute terms and not on the margins. If the marginal income tax beyond a threshold jumps by %10, then even discounting the increasingly marginal value of each additional dollar earned I will value the return on work less when I hit that tax threshold.