From today's Guardian:
Your leader on public finances (7 September) refers in its final section to the need for Labour to tackle the inequitable taxation system, rather than just cutting spending.
In her Comment article (8 September), Polly Toynbee refers to the call by Compass for a switch to land value taxation as a means of preventing the next housing boom. An annual land value tax has the advantage of both reducing inequalities – by replacing other inequitable taxes on labour and enterprise – and avoiding the pernicious and causal link between lending and property values, each feeding off the other, thus creating the credit surge and crunch. It would also lead to better use of land and buildings, the encouragement of a more productive economy and the provision of much needed infrastructure.
As Ashley Seager said (Economics, 10 August), "such a radical reform … would require bold political leadership". Has this government the guts to act bravely to save our economy?
John Lipetz, Chair, Coalition for Economic Justice.
@ DBC, ta for tip-off.
A grim document
2 hours ago
7 comments:
Mark,perhaps you could explain how LVT works in the countryside, as the Wikipedia article seems entirely concerned with built-up, i.e. urban land.
B, I'm with Adam Smith on this one, the pure agricultural value of farmland shouldn't be subject to LVT (farmland is worth about one per cent as much as urban land, so falls beneath any sensible de minimis threshold anyway).
But to be fair, agricultural landowners shouldn't get CAP subsidies either.
It also requires planning reform as slapping LVT on dilapidated listed buildings that the owner can't improve wouldn't exactly work.
I've been trying to think about how you do listing, and in the end, the simplest thing I could think of is that you do listing at a local level and don't charge LVT on listed buildings. If a building is valued as listed by the local people to be retained, then they pay the tax on it.
This would have the effect of reducing the number of pointless listed buildings, while allowing significant buildings to be kept and places like Lacock to be preserved (where its appearance is a big tourist draw).
OC: "It also requires planning reform"
...liberalising planning laws is a good thing in and of itself...
"... as slapping LVT on dilapidated listed buildings that the owner can't improve wouldn't exactly work."
Strictly speaking, LVT is on the location value, not the building, and the owner of a dilapidated listed building ought to just un-delapidate it.
As to the rest, agreed, of course.
"But to be fair, agricultural landowners shouldn't get CAP subsidies either"
Slightly OT, I admit, but by "agricultural landowners" do you mean landowners who don't do any actual farming, like aristocrats, or all landowners, "owner occupier" farmers (what I think used to be called "yeomen") included.?
B, 'single farm payments' are calculated on the basis of the number of acres you occupy, so on the fact of it, it benefits tenant farmers as well as owner-occupiers.
But the landlords of tenant farmers just increase the rent they charge by the amount of the subsidy and/or refuse to let it out for anything less than the value of the subsidy they would forego.
I see no reason to distinguish between owner-occupiers and other land-owners. The CAP payments are a huge expense and do not increase the amount of food that farmers grow, nor does it make the food cheaper, so I just don't see the point.
Sure, farmers have wildly fluctuating incomes, but they ought to self-insure this.
"The CAP payments are a huge expense and do not increase the amount of food that farmers grow, nor does it make the food cheaper, so I just don't see the point."
I think the point is that it boosts the profits of the supermarkets, as they are able to pay otherwise unsustainably low prices for food.
"Sure, farmers have wildly fluctuating incomes, but they ought to self-insure this."
What, you mean save, instead of spend, spend, spend when the times are good? Not sure Mr G.Brown would agree with you there.
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