There has been a bit of mention of land value taxation in the press recently, though not in any coherent way. In an article in the Guardian a couple of days ago, Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex, said, amongst other things, that, “A land value tax should be levied that so that when house and office values increase due to adjacent road, rail and public investment...

The Tax Justice Network (TJN) is an international consortium of organisations which claim to be concerned about injustices in the tax system. Their main focus has been on tax havens. It should not be difficult to understand that if taxation is levied on people and moveables, then they will move if they can to reduce their tax liability. But suggest to TJN – as many LVT advocates have –...

The United States Government Accountability Office has been investigating tax havens and found that 83 per cent of the largest US companies have tax haven/ secrecy jurisdiction subsidiaries. Following on from this, The Tax Justice Network, with the help of Alternatives Économiques in France and SOMO in the Netherlands, has just produced a new report, “Where on Earth”, with information...

EMPLOYERS’ BURDEN OF TAX This diagram illustrates the shocking truth about how the burden of taxation really falls on employers, despite appearances to the contrary.

It seems as if the world’s political leaders are determined to avoid examining the role of the land market in causing the boom/bust, which every day shows signs of being even worse than that of the early 1930s. The technique is to keep on finding excuses and scapegoats. The latest target is tax havens.

Increasing the supply of housing by Henry LawLand value taxation as advocated by the Campaign is only one of many possible ways of collecting land value. Many alternative proposals are put forward, such as development auctions, an idea which has been devised by Tim Leunig of the London School of Economics, who has written a pamphlet called “In my back yard – a proposal for development...

A worldwide crackdown on tax havens, from Switzerland to the Cayman Islands, will be spearheaded by Gordon Brown as the world’s richest nations use the global economic downturn to close loopholes that are costing them hundreds of billions in lost revenues.

This week there has been much wringing of hands about tax avoidance. The Guardian has even run a series, “The Tax Gap” on the subject. We must have a crack-down.

Higher national insurance payments and other taxes will cost the economy 175,000 jobs over the next four years, according to Oxford Economics, an independent consultancy. Mr Brown has set out plans to increase taxes after the next election to fund a temporary “fiscal stimulus” package including a time-limited cut in VAT and bringing forward some spending plans. The package will add...

We read in a report from the British Property Federation that Mayor of London Boris Johnson has today assured the property industry that he is “a friend to business” by putting his weight behind the fight against empty rates and offering support for new methods of funding.