Small farmers have nothing to fear from LVT – continued

To see the effect of LVT on farmers, consider the UK as an example. Under the present regime of taxation on labour, goods and services, residential land, comprising 3.5% of UK by surface area has a rental value of £200 billion a year, commercially used land, comprising 0.4% of the UK by surface area, has a rental value at least £30 billion a year. and farm and forestry land = 80% of the UK by surface area has an aggregate rental value approx. £1.7 billion a year*. Source from UK Government statistics.

Agricultural output, at farm gate prices, is less than one per cent of UK GDP; the rental value of farm land (about eighty per cent of the surface area) is less than one per cent of total land rental values.

It is also worth remembering that agricultural rental values are currently inflated by about £80 an acre as a result of the EU subsidy known as the Single Payment Scheme.

In the absence of SPS payments, rents would drop by about £80 per acre. Two-thirds of lower-value farmland (pasture land) would have a rental value of plus/minus nothing and the rental value of the one-third higher value arable land would fall by half. So the tax on a typical 100 acre mixed farm would be about £2,000 per year, i.e. less than the farmer’s personal allowance.