Killer arguments against LVT, not (54)

Sobers at least puts up a good fight. He submitted two further 'killer arguments' on episode 53, which I would politely describe as 'popular misconceptions':

1. "... the elderly, and those approaching retirement... would (rightly in my view) consider they are being charged rent for their own house, which they have spent a lifetime earning enough money (and paying tax on that income) to pay for."

To which I responded:

"Not true, my parents, being average pensioners in their seventies paid off their entire mortgage out of their very average incomes between mid-1960s and mid-1970s and have been living rent free ever since.

Even I, late baby-boomer that I am, paid off my entire mortgage between 1998 and 2008 out of current income - and that mortgage was considerably less than the cost of renting."

Further, I'd guess that even those who bought at the height of the late 1980s house price bubble will have a) nearly paid off the mortgage by now and b) have paid rather less in mortgage repayments than they would have had to pay had they been renting all that time.

The only people who are in the remotest danger of spending their whole working lives paying off the mortgage are those people who bought a house with a small deposit in the past few years - it is only these people who will be paying twice for the current value of where they live, and for whom we'd have to invent some transitional relief, for example by giving them a rebate on their Land Value Tax bill equal to the difference between what they are paying as a mortgage every month and what they would be paying had they bought their house for its lower value once LVT is introduced.

2. "But a pensioner has been taxed on income all his/her life, and now you want to tax his/her only asset, the house."

To which I responded:

"Not true. A state pensioner's 'main asset' is his or her pension income, the bulk of which is paid or subsidised by the taxpayer, as well as the right to free healthcare, free public libraries, police, refuse collection etc."

Or to clarify that:
- of course a house is seen as an asset, but there is no massive difference in living standards between an owner-occupier pensioner and one in social housing (assuming no savings in either case). And 'you can't take it with you', so effectively, the only people for whom that house is an 'asset' are the potential heirs.
- of course (most) pensioners have been paying income tax all their lives, but that was a payment for the public services they received while they were working and a payment for the state pensions being paid out at the time. OK, now it's somebody else's turn to pay their pensions, and clearly the bulk of that money will come from working age families - but is there any natural law that says that state pensions have to be funded solely out of taxes on employment rather than taxes on land values?

Also, I explained in that previous post that the simplest relieving provision for pensioners would be simply to increase the state pension so that an average retired couple with no savings would still be able to afford to live in an average house - again, is there any natural law that state pensions have to be wholly a transfer from working age people to retired people; why is it so terrible if there is also a transfer from pensioners in large homes to pensioners in smaller homes?

And aren't we always told that 'Britain is a crowded island', so why shouldn't we reward people (of any age) who are prepared to occupy the smallest amount of or least desirable land by allowing them to pay less tax - regardless of their incomes?