Thursday 1 March 2018

The Scottish Land Revenue Group's submisson to the Scottish Land Commission..

... is available here, with a generous name check for yours truly.

Those who read this blog regularly will be able to guess exactly what it's going to say before they read it. It does look nice in print though.

17 comments:

ThomasBHall said...

Good work!

benj said...


All good except a) 9% growth per year? b) 2/3 of Scottish rental values are location values?

benj said...

Also a bit wishy-washy on housing affordability and planning incentives, which would seem to be missing the most important point, IMHO.

DBC Reed said...

@MW Congratulations.Labour Land Campaign Old Boys have now established LVT as the governments in waiting's key domestic policy on both sides of the border.Seriously, now your name's so well known, you should being looking at hook/ups with Tony Blair's Land tax outfit and Labour Party. You should also offer to set up a (secret)LVT appraisal group for Theresa May to rescue her from the Brexit fixated frivolous thugs who have taken over the Conservative Party and turned it into Sons of UKIP (but twice as Nasti).The Conservatives need to get back into the popular homeownership game.Phone her now!

Bayard said...

DBCR I wish I could share your optimism. I suspect that this will turn out to be a big case of bait and switch. Once whichever party has got the votes, the whole thing will be first hived off to a commission (with orders to come up with the "right" answer), then kicked into the long grass.
We all know how it will play out, should Corbyn come to power and take on the Banks - it's set out in "A Very British Coup".

MikeW said...

Great job Mark. Looks good. Great structure. Links the Scots back to 'Real' Adam Smith (AGR). A new 'Scottish Enlightenment' one hopes. :)

Ben J - I like that it quickly, effectively deals with the expected fear mongering in:

3. Agriculture and Forestry

4. The total site premium of land in Scotland
(residential and commercial)

DBCR - cannot believe you link Tony Blair to the Labour Party! What are you thinking? I also suspect Mark is too shrewd to pick up the phone to May and co right now.Why chat up a corpse? Dream Ticket.How about the incoming Labour Chancellor hires in Mark's firm and Fred Harrison to thrash out our, UK as a whole LVT, in a small committe chaired by Stiglitz (he has written technical papers on LVT). He then advocates it to Labour/Unite economists as a whole.They finally grasp it. John M has his top level support to impliment it - we fight for it at the grassroots.

Bayard - I agree with your judgement and concerns with the long grassing of LVT. Think 1930 anti-strategy: too expensive, no spare civil servants, other things need doing to old chap, etc, etc. But I would council Corbyn and co to never use private helicopter/light aircraft firms myself!

Lola said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lola said...

Mark's paper makes it clear that the SLRG are proposing LVT as a replacement tax. Corbyn & Co. see it an extra tax. So that's NBG.

The Tories - well their roots are landowners, so fat chance.

Simply put Labour are socialists first and land taxers second and the Tories are rent-seekers first, second and third. Neither of them have any real philosophical commitment or incentive to implement proper reform.

Oh, and they both think that they spend other people's money better than those other people can.

DBC Reed said...

@MW I am not linking Blair's outfit to the Labour Party : they are now polar opposites.I was suggesting Mark lent his skills to both groups steering them clear of obvious, if different, pitfalls.( I think Blair is a significant player in this scenario by being a boring shit.Better to have the BS vote in our favour.)
@L The Tories are certainly rent seekers,agreed, but it is getting them nowhere.They nearly lost their attempt to secure their mandate last election by making themselves into a dead 'ard upgrade of UKIP rather proving that skint voters had other things on their minds.As you know I believe that the Conservatives ceased to self identify as the popular homeownership party because they had overdone the homeownerist policy of promoting property/ land value inflation and so had priced their younger voters out of the housing market.UKIP impersonation is all they have left.
If Theresa May could espouse LVT as a replacement tax au Wadsworth she could start making out that she is championing the propertyless young against the greedy old, down the left, ie doing a Macmillan by outflanking the Labour Party down the left .

James Higham said...

Fame!

Lola said...

DBCR. Well, that ain't gonna happen. I don't agree that the Tories went UKIP. IMHO they went Blairite. Neither Corbyn's Labour nor May's Tories are exactly for liberty in the separate ways.

DBC Reed said...

Tim Worstall is over at his new Continental Telegraph , an attempt to go up market from his blog,attacking John MCDonnell and putting up a Tory LVT argument , which I feel would be better and more fairly handled by you.You are a the man of the moment and are not dragged down by association with your blog: while his is a low dive,not for the fainthearted ,to put it mildly, but, perhaps unfortunately, not to be taken seriously.

MikeW said...

Thanks DBC Reed, one thing, he is not 'putting up a Tory LVT argument'. He is putting up OUR Liberal case for replacement LVT. But a noble end used as a party political card trick.

He says:

'He’s talking about raising more tax revenue from the economy by having a new tax. This is not the same thing at all. (Lola's long held view too)

An LVT is a good idea but it should be matched by a reduction in other more damaging forms of tax. Which isn’t what is being suggested now, is it? ( no its a discussion on Council tax at the moment)

But then who is surprised at John McDonnell arguing for “Moar Tax!” Worstall.

Surely then, even in his own example, LVT is replacing the existing regressive tax: Council Tax. After that a Tory government (Local Government)could then go in one direction, Labour the other.Sure.That's future politics Tim isn't it?

Lola, I say again to a fellow Georgist fighter here, what price to get LVT established? A few years of those nasty Labourites and then you and Tim win power back - if you can. Add 'time' back into your own argument.Labour keeping the area of focus a Local Council Tax is the perfect bedding process for LVT IMHO. We all win in the longer term.

Lola said...

MikeW. Last para. The tories are bloody awful but Corbyn would be catastrophic. The damage he and McDonnell would wreak would take decades to fix. You only have to look at the malign legacy of Blair Brown Balls and the lack of progress in undoing their shameful failures to see that.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Thanks for all your kind comments!

BJ, no, not 9% growth per annum. 9% is the just the one-off step increase resulting from scrapping/reducing income tax. Scottish economy would then grow slightly faster than otherwise from that new higher base level. And yes of course it was wishy washy in places, you never know whether your audience want house prices to go up or down.

Re the Tory v Labour thing, clearly neither of them will ever introduce proper LVT, whether as a replacement tax or not. Our only hope is to get so many people to vote YPP that the big two move gently in our direction in order to shut YPP down. It;s not an all or nothing situation and anything is better than nothing. This is the lesson of the Greens and UKIP.

Bayard said...

Lola, if Corbyn is stupid enough to come to power before the whole Brexit fiasco has completed wreaking its havoc on the Tories, then he will deserve everything he gets, which will be an awful lot of sh1t. Brexit will suddenly no longer be the Tories' problem, it will be the Labour party's problem. OTOH, what politician has ever gone into an election thinking, "this will be a good one to lose"?

benj said...

"BJ, no, not 9% growth per annum. 9% is the just the one-off step increase resulting from scrapping/reducing income tax."

Someone needs to change the document then. Says 9% per year at the bottom.