Land is taxed in a similar manner in other countries. There are several variations:
-based on the value of the land, without taking into account the owner's income, land use, or size -based up on the size of the land and how it is used (e.g. farm land may be taxed differently than residential property) -based upon the value of the land and income derived from the land (farming, rental, etc., but not necessarily income from the operation of a business)
There are also various schemes to allow alteration of basic land taxes. For example, in some US states, people who let the forest service manage it as forest crop land, and who allow public access for recreation (ala Scottish land access) pay little or no property taxes on the land.
In some places, people who have high value property, but low income (e.g. an elderly Londoner who has long since paid for the property, but is living on a state pension), do not have to pay some or all of the tax.
I think that it has potential to be more fair than council tax, but of course, it has to be implemented sensibly.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
I can't remember what it was called because I've only read about it and not recently, but I'm pretty sure we've had a tax on the value of land before, possibly introduced by the Attlee govt immediately after WWII.
thought the labour idea of the land tax was primarily to get the housing market moving i.e. Stop the large building contracts stocking up large portfolio of land, which has bee n earmarked for development, but are waiting till the price rises.
It was suggested by Henry George in 19th century. It has many advantages, one being that you can't hide your garden/car park/building plot in the Caymen islands.
Seeing as there is a supposed shortage, it prevents hording, since a sane person would keep only the land from which he made use.
There isn't a shortage of land, it's just that some places are jam-packed with houses and people.
What about the Duke of Cornwall? Half of the Duchy is in Devon and also large parts of Cornwall. Then there's Herefordshire and Somerset plus the whole of the Isles of Scilly.
Mick F wrote:There isn't a shortage of land, it's just that some places are jam-packed with houses and people.
What about the Duke of Cornwall? Half of the Duchy is in Devon and also large parts of Cornwall. Then there's Herefordshire and Somerset plus the whole of the Isles of Scilly.
Perhaps it would be more acceptable to tax land only above a threshold, giving us an opportunity to decide how much land someone can have (garden and house combined) before we consider them too wealthy to avoid the tax. We really do have to be humane about this. House prices have not always been as high as they are now, and there was a time when a hard working person on a modest wage could save up and get a mortgage on a semi with a big garden. Those people have now paid off their mortgages and are living in homes that at today's prices they could not afford to buy. It would be cruel to turn their wise buy of the past into a burden.
Paraphrasing: "the man-hours that go into lawn maintenance every year are only slightly less than those that went into the entire Apollo programme".
There are ten house on my street. All have lawns but only one ever uses "products" on the lawn. I've been living here for 19 years and have never put anything on the lawn. If you taxed lawns you would just increase the tendency for people to pave over their gardens, reducing wildlife potential. Where will the blackbirds get their worms?
pwa wrote:It would be cruel to turn their wise buy of the past into a burden.
The majority portion of the increase in house prices has been in the land they sit on. In almost all cases, an owner has done nothing to increase the value of the land his house sits on, so he is just loafing off others. BTW, most people are impoverished by high house prices, even those who fully own one, since the only way to capitalize on it is to sell it...then where do you live? The best form of land value tax would replace all other taxes, then wise homeowners might start bragging about how they don't waste a valuable resource and they only took what they needed.
Land use is surely a factor too, so while forested land has attracted significant tax breaks in the past it is not highly or quickly profitable as things go. Then there is the humble smallholding, while much diminished in number, that still provides a simple living and lifestyle for a few. If a piece of land produces food or some other crop then taxing it will increase the cost of the produce?
pwa wrote:It would be cruel to turn their wise buy of the past into a burden.
The majority portion of the increase in house prices has been in the land they sit on. In almost all cases, an owner has done nothing to increase the value of the land his house sits on, so he is just loafing off others. BTW, most people are impoverished by high house prices, even those who fully own one, since the only way to capitalize on it is to sell it...then where do you live? The best form of land value tax would replace all other taxes, then wise homeowners might start bragging about how they don't waste a valuable resource and they only took what they needed.
Before buying my current house nearly twenty years ago I nearly bought a 1930s semi with a bit of character, in need of "refreshing". It would have cost about £75,000 then, and with a mortgage I could have managed it. One of its main selling points was the big garden leading down to a little used railway line. The people who bought those houses then were not wealthy and are not wealthy today. They bought those houses probably because of the gardens, choosing them over newer houses with smaller gardens at the same price. I don't think it is right to muck them about by changing the rules of the game, making their choice of a few decades ago come back to haunt them.
