Wednesday 4 November 2015

Some sensible talk from the Torygraph

Everything you need to know about business rates, but were afraid to ask

"The opposition from businesses on the grounds of their cost is rather strange, because it's not occupiers that end up taking the financial hit. Rather, it's land owners. This is the so called "incidence" of a tax, who ends up shouldering it"

Given that a much higher proportion of residential land is owner occupied compared to commercial land, opposition to higher taxation of such is understandable until you observe that the highest value land is not majority owner occupied (London is majority rented). A very small but vocal group of residential landowners would lose out.

4 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Bloody hell! Wonders never cease. He actually says that BR are close to LVT, and in a good way!

Bayard said...

"A very small but vocal group of residential landowners would lose out."

I think that should be "small but rich and influential" and I think you mean "commercial" rather than "residential".

mombers said...

B, I meant if the same logic was applied to residential land. The vast majority of people would be better off under higher land taxes

Bayard said...

I see what you mean now. However the few rich residential landowners in London have the influence of their riches and the many not so rich residential landowners outside London have the influence of their votes.