I was hoping for something really special for the bi-centennial edition, and Bob E has emailed me links to articles on land taxes from The Telegraph and from The Guardian (Simon Jenkins on tip-top form) which do not disappoint.
At last! The scales have fallen from my eyes and I shall henceforth my Georgist ways!
Finally, we have some reasoned arguments as to why it is better to tax earned income, profits and output rather than the community-generated rental value of land; commenters have actually applied economic rigour to their analyses and laid out clearly why a compassionate government can benefit its citizens and the economy by keeping house prices and mortgage debts as high as possible; and why it is good for land ownership to be concentrated in as few hands as possible; it's nice to see the Baby Boomers go the bother of explaining to the Priced Out Generation why they are actually better off by renting until middle age rather than paying off an affordable mortgage.
So that's it lads, I will also contact my landlord shortly to negotiate a hefty rent increase, I never realised the sacrifices he had to make to pay off an affordable mortgage, most of which was eroded away by inflation and then sit back and watch his house go up tenfold in value. As it happens, I did very well out of the last house price bubble, so in future I shall expect a bit more reverence from those peasants who actually have to work for a living.
doesntplaywellwithothers Jesus Christ, life is unfair Daniel, get over it and get over yourself while you're at it. If you want to buy your own place get a better job, get another job, earn more money, work harder or move the hell out of London and commute from somewhere where the property prices are more in line with the thickness of your wallet. This constant bleating, bleeding heart, politics of envy bullshit you spout is so 1970's. Grow up.
bubbles15 ... would you have no one own a home, ever? You're aware of the huge benefits of living in an area of high home ownership instead of renting, I assume?
pewkatchoo You really are a very silly little boy.
misterman Tax isn't fair. It's theft.
george204 What's unfair about your pal not paying tax on his house? His parents bought it out of taxed income, organised their finances to that they could pay off the mortgage and leave it to him without inheritance tax (the most evil tax of all) forcing him to sell it. That house and the money which paid for it has been taxed several times over.
Hayekian2 Daniel, every week you move further into the realms of socialist envy politics.
I've inherited nothing: (a) my parents are still alive; and (b) they are not wealthy. I worked hard for 20 years and saved such that I was able to buy (eventually and out of income on which I have already paid 40%+ tax and on which I paid 4% stamp duty) a house in London, which is apparently "a mansion".
I now have part time roles in the NHS, the charity sector and social investment*, earning enough (post-yet more tax) to cover my outgoings. Taxing me again (on top of council tax) on my property means I will have to sell my house and will almost certainly leave the country ... so no tax, no socially useful work and the house will probably be bought by overseas buyers who will pay little or no UK tax.
* And this person is not a rent seeker? This leech considers his or her work "socially useful" and imagines that he or she could find high paying work abroad? FFS!
Delboy36 This is a very confused and whiney piece.
pewkatchoo That is because our Daniel is a very confused and whiney little boy.
That's just from the first page of the comments, there are plenty more reasoned arguments explaining why there is no link between credit bubbles, land price bubbles and recessions on later pages, as well as an explanation that when Adam Smith recommended taxing "the ground rent of land" what he actually meant was a tax on earned income and profits and subsidies to land owners, all a terrible misunderstanding!
Missing
37 minutes ago
15 comments:
Don't forget how house price bubbles benefit our wonderful banking industry, the centre of the financial world etc etc. The head of BSA (yes they are still going, it appears, only now they make machine tools) was saying on the radio that he would automatically look to the banks to finance any new order. Of course, no-one raises money from the general public any more, they haven't got any spare cash, it's all tied up in superbly valuable housing.
B, yes, bankers are the main beneficiaries of Home-Owner-Ism.
I thought it was a splendid 200th. When they are really rude you know you have hit the spot. So its a win.
But they have to be being genuinely rude, not just telling the truth. which sounds rude to anyone in denial.
RS, yes, the gloves appear to be off, the Boomers have openly admitted that they don't give a shit about young people any more. So maybe young people will finally realise this and fight back?
I loved where Simon Jenkins says, The private housing lobby is already hollering about losers, crying that any new top bands will "unfairly target the income-poor and equity-rich". This is like worrying about people who own Rolls-Royces they cannot afford to drive.
Sums up the Poor Widow objection in a nutshell.
D, what I liked most was the fact that he's done his homework and found out that domestic rates are much higher in the USA, Singapore, Switzerland etc, which means you can shut people up who say "But all the rich people will emigrate to..."
Absolutely. It's a first class article.
Mind you, I doff my hat to Daniel Knowles as well. The lad has guts. He must have guessed what sort of feedback he was going to get. Yet he went ahead and wrote the article anyway. Kudos is due.
D, Daniel in the lion's den springs to mind. But he proved one thing, there really does not appear to be a good argument against taxing the rental value of land rather than income. The search continues for that one elusive killer argument against...
Congrats on the 200th!
yes, the gloves appear to be off, the Boomers have openly admitted that they don't give a shit about young people any more
Either that or try to pull the "not just numbers in a spreadsheed but human beings" like a certain commenter on the 199th. If all economic argument fails, the last stage of Homey'ism will probably the swinging between pure anger or touchy-feely appeals.
Kj, ta.
You would not believe how many times Poor Widows In Mansion have been mentioned in the news in England in the last week or so, you'd think the whole of London and the South East was just Poor Widows In Mansions. The idea of "just exempt them" doesn't occur to anybody.
"The idea of "just exempt them" doesn't occur to anybody."
You can't exempt them, they're our human shield.
regards
A. Homey
With regard to all of the old widows in mansions, surely there are plenty of younger men without houses willing to woo and wed them...
As an addendum, in the Telegraph comments section, I saw the following:
monro
...
Wealthy property owners, highly taxed, suddenly become property renters with the wealth stashed elsewhere, no doubt overseas - maybe in property.
(and more stuff in this vein.)
To which I replied:
Renting from whom -- property owners who can be taxed? Or is it renters all the way down?
***
Let it not be said that munro runs away when confronted with logic:
Renters from property companies who pay corporation tax rather than a wealth tax.
For heaven's sake!
Hands up who believes, in today's Britain, that the thing we really need is new taxes?
So apparently, corporations can run away from an LVT by paying a corporation tax. That seems to be a rather peculiar loophole to leave in the tax code, but I am not up on UK tax laws. :)
B, true.
According to Homey nutters CPS, there are 90,000 "mansions" in London, and, shock horror, 15% of them have been owned for more than twenty years; of those, maybe half the owners are still working age, and of the older owners, I'm sure half will be retired judges on handsome pensions. So actual real life PWB's number about 4,000. Exempting them wouldn't even show up in HMR's statistics.
Snarf, game set and match to you; the corp tax would (as at present with Business Rates) be paid AFTER LVT (or council tax etc) has been paid.
But facts and logic don't get you very far with Homeys.
For example, I've had Faux Lib's seriously advance the argument that "everybody would be forced to sell their homes because they can't afford the LVT and then they would be forced to pay sky high rents to evil tax evading corporations who would pass on the LVT in full".
The counter-logic that it would therefore be far cheaper to remain an owner-occupier and just pay the LVT, than it would be to pay sky high rent and LVT on top was completely lost on them.
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