About LVT - Land Value Tax Campaign

What are the essential features of a sound LVT?

Written on 11 May 2010. Posted in Transition.

The tax is payable on all land, with no concessions, allowances or thresholds. Allowances have the effect of reducing the amount of existing taxes that can be abolished. Thresholds could, in addition, lead to avoidance by sub-division of land plots. The rate of tax is set nationally and at the same rate for all classes of land. Local authorities should not be free to set their own rate of LVT. There...

Football star’s injury proves “rent of talent” = wages

Written on 15 March 2010. Posted in What is land?.

“Rent of Talent”, a notion that grew up some time around the 1900s, has cast a fog of confusion over the term “Rent”. The talents in question were those of opera singers, sportsmen, and the like. The argument went that if land rent should be taxed, so should natural talent, thereby opening up the case for progressive income taxes. This helped the landowning interest, as it...

Working harder to stay in the same place

Written on 14 February 2010. Posted in Reducing inequality.

How come, when I produce so much more today, my wages never rise, I work ever longer hours, even my wife now has to work and the cost of living always rises? Who is getting the gain from my extra work. And where will it all end. When will I be able to spend more than Sunday morning with my kids? When will I get a life? How about this explanation from one of our members?

LVT – national or local?

Written on 9 February 2010. Posted in Transition.

We want your views A difficulty with any form of local taxation is that resources and needs do not match. Consider, on the one hand, the London boroughs of Westminster, and on the other, boroughs such as Haringey, Lewisham and Newham, just outside the central area. In Westminster are to be found Parliament, major centres of shopping and employment, and some of the most sought-after residential areas...

How might LVT be implemented?

Written on 6 February 2010. Posted in Transition.

Partly as a result of the discussions that have been taking place under the sponsorship of the Coalition for Economic Justice, of which the Campaign is a member, we have had further thoughts on how LVT might be introduced. The concern that has been expressed centres around the role of local taxation. Put simply, there is a lot of land value in some local authority areas and very little in others,...

Of course class still matters – it influences everything we do

Written on 10 January 2010. Posted in Reducing inequality.

In today’s Observer, veteran commentator Will Hutton discusses class in Britain. But as usual, he fails to mention the underlying reason for the entrenched class divide. Nobody really wants to talk about it. The rift goes back a long way, centuries, to the Norman Conquest and perhaps before that. There are those who own land and can live off rent, at no effort. There are the rest, who must...

What is wealth?

Written on 7 January 2010. Posted in What is land?.

In a recent exchange of correspondence, the question of the definition of “Wealth” came up. We have always worked to the definition given by Henry George, that Wealth consists of “natural products that have been secured, moved, combined, separated, or in other ways modified by human exertion to fit them for the gratification of human desires.” In short, Wealth is man made....

Wages and productivity

Written on 8 December 2009. Posted in Reducing inequality.

One of our members was asked recently, “How come, when I produce so much more today, my wages never rise? I work ever longer hours, even my wife now has to work and the cost of living always rises. Who is getting the gain from my extra work? And where will it all end? When will I get a life?” This is why: as productivity rises, earned incomes, in the form of wages and interest, fall...

How would the LVT liability be shared within a block of flats?

Written on 6 December 2009. Posted in Valuations.

This is best understood by first consider a simple example, such as a 10 storey block (with a lift) with one flat on each floor, each flat being identical in plan. At a first approximation the land value tax liability would be shared equally.

How does planning zoning affect LVT valuation?

Written on 4 December 2009. Posted in Valuations.

When valuation is made for LVT assessments, it is assumed that each plot of land is in optimum use in accordance with the planning system. A criticism often made is that there can be uncertainty about what the planning authorities would allow. Such a criticism is valid only if valuations are based on selling prices, since market values take account of the possibility of planning consent in the ...

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