Wednesday 21 August 2019

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (468)

From The Sun:

LABOUR are plotting a “punitive” tax raid on Middle England that would add nearly £400 to the average council tax bill.

Tory Ministers leapt on incendiary Venezuelan-style proposals* for a blistering new levy based on the value of everybody’s home...


* Strange. It would be more accurate to point out that the proposed system would be very similar to Domestic Rates in Northern Ireland, only without the £400,000 cap, which makes it closer to residential property taxes in the USA (where the rates are usually much higher than the 0.7% proposed here and which is the base rate in Northern Ireland, plus local precepts, so in some areas in NI, the final rate is 0.8% or 0.9%).

The highlight is the first comment:

BewareRedFlag: Its OK for multi millionaire politicians like corbyn [sic] he can afford it. Progressive taxation robs those on median incomes and below of their disposal [sic] income. Labour lied about brexit, they lie and will hammer the working class for tax, forget the £80k tax threshold they want to double foreign aid how dies [sic] that benefit you?

Commenter clearly doesn't understand what "progressive" means. Corbyn would end up paying about £7,000 a year or something. Bill for median home in the UK would be £1,400.

4 comments:

mombers said...

Council tax is based on the value of one's home but only the bit under ~£1m. How is that better than being based on the entire value? Surely what this logic entails is a poll tax on houses, i.e. the same council tax bill for every dwelling in the land.

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, that's the beauty of the comment. He says that a tax increase payable mainly by the wealthy will "hit" lower earners.

Shiney said...

I think its a great idea, but.....

Labour won't reduce the other harmful taxes on income and output to compensate but will just blow the extra revenue on pointless virtue signalling and pet projects.

Striebs said...

Attempts so far to promote and propagate understanding of location value tax and things like M.M.T. have been spectacularly unsuccessful .

Out of ignorance and cynicism , ordinary salt of the earth people reckon that a location value tax is against their interest .

They buy into the charlatans household finances analogy explanation of national finances , probably because it seems like common sense and moral to them .

Acceptance of claims that H.M. Govt has no money except that which it takes from taxpayers or borrows and that the "National Debt" has to be paid off are natural follow on's - justifying austerity .

Perhaps L.V.T.'s advocates need to tout a bogey man . There is one and it's real ; mortgage lenders specifically the banks .

The almost universal belief that banks lend out savings (which even the B.O.E. says is not the case) looks a good first target and burstable bubble . Doesn't it ?

If L.V.T. ever got traction and the mob got hold of it , things could get out of hand !