The Daily Telegraph actually picked up on that bit of Vince's speech and has done a Daily Mail-style counter attack (i.e. misinterpret what he said, and then attack that):
Middle-class home owners would pay higher taxes under radical plans outlined by Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary.
In a speech at his party's annual conference, Mr Cable called for the "tax base" to be shifted on to "property and land". He said it was far harder for people to dodge property taxes than income tax. The wealthy increasingly are moving their affairs offshore to avoid the new 50p rate on earnings.
Mr Cable expressed concern over the "extreme concentration of wealth" among those who own property. His comments will alarm middle-class home owners who have seen council tax bills double over the past decade.
George Osborne, the Chancellor, is likely to reject plans for higher property taxes and the Conservatives are already attempting to cap council tax bills. The speech is likely to add to the growing friction between the Business Secretary and Mr Osborne.
Oh dear.
When Vince referred to "extreme concentration of wealth" he did not mean "middle-class home owners", no sir. He meant people like the Duke of Westminster. And you'll note that Vince didn't ask for "taxes to be increased" he asked for "the tax base to be shifted".
I don't know what sort of topsy turvy Home-Owner-Ist world the Daily Telegraph live in, but I'd assume that "middle-class home owners" and "the wealthy [who] are moving their affairs offshore to avoid the new 50p rate on earnings" are mutually exclusive.
Vince probably supports the 50p rate, but apart from that he and the DT are agreed on this point: the super-tax has led to evasion/avoidance therefore the super-tax has the effect of increasing the tax burden on everybody else (Laffer Curve and all that).
So all thing being equal, if you were a "middle-class home owner", you'd prefer Vince's Mansion Tax (which somebody else pays) to the 50p super-tax (which indirectly increases the taxes on you).
Grand theft Labour
2 hours ago
8 comments:
This is where it becomes easy to see what the difference between a conservative and a Tory is. The "Conservative" Party may have many conservative supporters but it is run by Tories. And it will never be easy to convince the Tories that LVT is good for the country since most of them can only see that it is bad for themselves, the landed gentry. Basically LVT is a conservative idea but it is not a Tory idea.
So it is disappointing but not surprising to see the Daily Torygraph coming out against Vince Cable on this. They may take a conservative viewpoint but only when it does not conflict with Tory interests.
The Daily Hate version of this story (posted on HPC) does hit on the interesting political question: why Cameron has given Cable such "a long leash" to explore such anti Homeownerist ideas.
Either Cameron is giving him so much rope to hang himself or he
does n't want to make Cable walk on this issue.Why not?
(The DT's figures point to wiping out the deficit with O.5% land tax,
which for the average Homeowner works out at 500 quid p.a.,never mind the tax replacement savings suggested by MW for the Bow Group all those years ago and latterly borrowed by Andy Burnham .BTW Diane Abbott's campaign team declared her support for LVT when pressed by Carol Wilcox -but,typically, after
the leadership polls closed.)
MW< I can see where you're coming from on this, and your comments are fair.
On the other hand, the danger is that in practice Vince's "shift of taxes onto property and land" will simply become an excuse to raise council tax as an excuse not to cut public spending.
AdamCollyer is correct. All that the current interest in LVT type taxes indicates is that politicians have discovered a new tax, which they would like to use to extract more tax overall from us, not less.
I can see NO-ONE proposing abolishing income tax (and all the other host of taxes MW suggests), merely shifting the balance slightly, but with an overall higher tax burden to pay for the bloated State.
Which is precisely what I said would happen when politicos got hold of the idea of LVT.
He quite clearly says SHIFT the tax base, in practice though I think Adam Collyer is thinking along standard politician lines here. Politicians these days would sooner have taxes on property as EXTRA which is inherently wrong.
AC, SW, I've heard this argument a million times, but if we have to drag 'politics' into this, just consider this:
The Tories merrily hiked VAT - the ultimate stealth tax - to 20%, claiming it would increase tax revenues/burden by about £13 billion and nobody batted an eyelid.
Just imagine that the only way for them to raise that £13 billion a year was to increase Council Tax by half. It wouldn't have happened, would it? Because property taxes are IN YOUR FACE taxes - so the very transparency and honesty and unpopularity of LVT would be yet another of its redeeming features.
S, ta for input, but as your personal 'property gains to earned income' ratio is approaching infinity, I'll take your arguments with a pinch of salt, if I may.
His comments will alarm middle-class home owners who have seen council tax bills double over the past decade.
Typical home-owner-ist doublethink.
If somebody's income doubled over the course of a decade, a doubling of income tax as a result would be expected, but the same effect on property taxes just doesn't seem to compute.
PL, exactly. But the key to land 'ownership' is privatised tax collection, it's a straight battle of 'land owners' versus 'society in general'.
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