About LVT - Land Value Tax Campaign

Anything rather than LVT

Written on 21 April 2016. Posted in Transition.

An article in the Guardian today reports that “Offshore companies buying UK property could be forced to reveal their ultimate owners under plans being considered by ministers to crack down on tax evasion and money laundering. The proposals would shine a spotlight on the foreign firms that hold billions of pounds in British property without having to declare who is behind them. It could also...

Humbug in perspective

Written on 8 April 2016. Posted in Natural justice.

A correspondent sent me this yesterday, apropos the Panama “revelations” “I paid £200k for my house in 99. Now its worth £600 big ones. How much work did I do? None. How much tax did I pay? None. How much benefit did I receive? Rather a lot – All the increase in price plus improved location value. Now, multiply that by 23 million home owners and you have a nation of benefit...

What is LVT – at length

Written on 19 March 2015. Posted in What is land?.

A new 3000 word article available as a download discusses LVT in fuller detail, beginnning with an explanation of how land value arises and what it actually is (and is not). One of its aims is to dispel the growing misconception that LVT is a wealth tax based on the selling prices of land. LVT is not a wealth tax and it is a charge on the its rental value, which is an actual or imputed revenue stream....

The smart solution is clear: a land value tax

Written on 25 February 2014. Posted in Efficiency.

The idea keeps popping up. Article in The Independent.

Property tax to raise five times expected amount

Written on 24 February 2014. Posted in Transition.

A crackdown on the rich and famous who own mansions through offshore companies is on course to raise five times more than expected. Pop stars, actors and jetsetters were able to avoid paying stamp duty when they bought and sold multi-million pound properties by selling it as part of a ‘company’ based abroad. A move to close the loophole had been expected to raise £20million this year,...

Disperse power from handful who hold it

Written on 31 January 2014. Posted in Reducing inequality.

“The focus of a progressive tax system should be vast inequalities of wealth – particularly driven by the concentration of land and asset ownership – that far outweigh inequalities of income.” Letter from Dr Prateek Buch in today’s Financial Times.

The great British property divide

Written on 27 October 2013. Posted in Natural justice.

An article in today’s Observer reports how quite ordinary Victorian houses in Albion Drive, Hackney (on the west side of London Fields), have continued to shoot up in value even during the recession and are now selling for the best part of a million pounds.

UK farm rents 2011 (newest data from DEFRA)

Written on 16 August 2013. Posted in Valuations.

Note: FAT = full agricultural tenancy, FBT = farm business tenancy Source: DEFRA Farm Rents England 2011/12 Published 7 March 2013

432 families own half the land area of Scotland

Written on 3 August 2013. Posted in Natural justice.

Imagine a feudal country where 432 families own half the land. Welcome to Scotland. This article in the Independent is about the resistance of the lairds to the proposal to break up the big estates and distribute land to small owner-occupying farmers. It is a proposal which would do nothing to address the real problem which is the private appropriation of the rent of land. Nor does it address the...

The two big ideas

Written on 1 April 2013. Posted in Natural justice.

George Monbiot writes in the Guardian in support of Land Value Taxation and Basic Income.

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