LVT and Airports

From the Daily Home-Owner-Ist

People who live near airports should pay less tax for ‘tolerating’ high levels of noise, a new report suggests.

The Institute of Economic Affairs argues that the area around runways could become ‘tax havens’ for local residents with public services paid for through taxes on airport operators.

The radical idea emerged ahead of tomorrow’s publication of an interim report by Sir Howard Davies into airport expansion in the South East

This is of course, one of the useful things about LVT - you not only get people who live near a railway station and get the perks of this that makes their commute better and raises their house price, you also compensate people who lose their house value due to being on a flightpath. And you don't need a huge bureaucracy deciding how far away is "close" or creating "tax havens", you just let the housing market adjust and the tax adjusts. People right underneath a jumbo will see their LVT become almost worthless. People a mile away will see a smaller loss.

And it would massively simplify public enquiries. You'd still need one as some developments would cause genuine economic damage. We wouldn't want someone building a nightclub next door to Stonehenge, as it would destroy more value than it created, for example. But we'd probably have a couple of new aircraft, and the problems of water shortages in the South East would evaporate (pun intended) as Thames Water would get on with building reservoirs.