That's fair but I don't think, at least with empty buildings, the revenues would be anywhere close to being able to replace a significant portion of income taxes. The scales are vastly different. But I should apologize for an overly snarky initial comment.

Depends on how much unused real estate there is, and what counts as unused. There are beautiful places out there filled with cottages that are unused 80-90% of the year, while the locals struggle.

Taxes serve as a discouragement, so let’s tax the harmful things first. Then those that can afford it without any real harm to quality of life, then lastly everyone else.

An underused property tax hits the first two really well.