Comments on: Land Value Tax NOW

By: Monkee

Monkee — Sat, 02 May 2009 11:08:43 +0000

100% in agreement

I’m a classical liberal/geo-libertarian but
this should be a priority for all liberals

“Ever since Liberals were thwarted from taxing land values to achieve such a society 100 years ago, taxing work and productive profits has served only to keep people poor”

its time for “the curious death of Labourite Britain”

Historically we were close to achieving a Liberal Britain
then labour and the Tories went off on a mission to turn the UK into a Soviet monarchy with clause 4 and “state capitalism”

5 stars

By: Richard H

Richard H — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:32:00 +0000

Tom:

Yeah, I think you are misreading this. Just as renters have council tax and utilities passed onto them (or considered in the price of their rent, when the owner sets the charge) the LVT would of course get passed on to people who are renting.

The advantage in LVT is that it rewards people insulating and improving their properties or re-developing brownfields sites. So, it will help many people unable to afford buying or renting a decent home by making it an incentive rather than disincentive to develop and improve a site. At the moment people are charged on the value of the property, creating a tax on improvements or insulation etc. Under LVT it is the site they are charged for. So, building thirty flats on the site of a single home would incur the same LVT — but would be shared by 30 households. What is more, the site value reflects improvements to the local area so places with greater public investment are naturally charged more.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:19:31 +0000

What about people in shared ownership schemes ? Do they pay full LVT ? Why shoudl someone 3 years into a mortgage (and in who in no real sense owns their property) be treated as if they owned a property outright ? they have neither wealth nor abilty to pay.
Why do people who rent not have to pay LVT ? or am I misreading this?

By: Rob Knight

Rob Knight — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:41:02 +0000

I know that this is obviously a tricky question, but is there any way of calculating, approximately, how much individuals would pay under LVT? There are some obvious assumptions that we can make, such as that those owning large amounts of valuable land would probably pay dramatically more in tax than they do now, but what does it mean for the ‘average’ person? I’d assume that the average person would be left better off by a switch to LVT and away from other forms of tax (the increase in personal allowance for income tax), but I’m nowhere near having the sums necessary to prove it. I think that this presents a significant barrier in selling it to people; it’s much less clear even than the LIT proposal at the last GE which Charles Kennedy famously stumbled over when asked the direct question about who would pay more or less.

By: James Graham

James Graham — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:23:37 +0000

The Social Liberal Forum has never called for anyone to be expelled from the Liberal Democrats; indeed we have publicly called the party remaining a broad church.

By: Ed Joyce

Ed Joyce — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:58:35 +0000

I would also declare an interest here being a strong supporter of ALTER’s policies.

I am also a member of Liberal Vision – and a lover of ‘Negative Freedom’. I do not feel uncomfortable being a Land Taxer and Economic Liberal (the two go together generally in my experience) in the party as the abolition of income tax for those earning less than the average wage is a policy that belongs in the Liberal Party.

Low tax is a libertarian policy but not a right wing one. I believe the factionalisation of the party will clarify the party direction and be helpful provided that we retain a broad church.

The basic problem between the Social Liberals and the Libertarians is that the Social Liberals are authoritarian in nature and conduct their debate in terms of ‘LV/Libertarians should leave/be expelled’. Libertarians are constantly threatened and harried within the party by Social Liberals wanting them to leave.

Libertarians in my experience support a ‘live and let live approach’ and I have never heard any wish to expel anyone – even those who shamefully supported the Religious Toleration Bill.

I hope that an agreement can be reached between the leaders of the SLF and LV that we will never recommend or advocate the expulsion of each others supporters from the party. If someones behavious requires this it should be done by conference as a whole with the factions either supporting their own candidate or staying on the sidelines – otherwise yes the party could be damaged by internicine strife.

Ed Joyce