Betterment, making better

Better

Better may also refer to:* "to better" as a verb, meaning to undergo betterment* better, an alternate spelling of bettor, as a noun, is someone who bets Songs* "Better", by Benga from the 2008 release Pleasure EP...

, is a general term used particularly in connection with the increased value given to real property

Real property

In English Common Law, real property, real estate, realty, or immovable property is any subset of land that has been legally defined and the improvements to it made by human efforts: any buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, roads, various property rights, and so forth...

 by causes for which a tenant

Leasehold estate

A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord....

 or the public

Public

In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...

, but not the owner, is responsible; it is thus of the nature of unearned increment. When, for instance, some public improvement results in raising the value of a piece of private land, and the owner is thereby bettered through no merit of his own, he gains by the betterment, and many economists

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 and politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

s have sought to arrange, by tax

Tax

To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...

ation or otherwise, that the increased value shall come into the pocket of the public rather than into the owner's. A betterment tax would be assessed in order to divert from the owner of the property the profit

Profit (accounting)

In accounting, profit can be considered to be the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market whatever it is that is accounted as an enterprise in terms of the component costs of delivered goods and/or services and any operating or other expenses.-Definition:There are...

 thus accruing unearned to him. The whole problem is one of the incidence of taxation and the question of land values, and various applications of the principle of betterment have been tried in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, raising considerable controversy from time to time.
In Leshoto there was one project called "Betterment".