Comment - Land Value Tax Campaign

Property boosts UK net worth to £6.8 trillion

Written on 17 August 2012. Posted in Economics.

Britain’s property market has boosted the nation’s wealth to £6.8 trillion, despite a global financial crisis which has weighed heavily on the UK economy. Net worth rose 3.3pc in 2011 according to figures from the Office for National Statistics, with property now worth more than £4 trillion. Read the article in the Daily Telegraph. It is complete nonsense of course but illustrates the...

Back to business – and LVT good for landowners

Written on 13 August 2012. Posted in Taxation.

Not quite. But the Olympics and the holiday season have squeezed out most news about politics and economics. The troubles with the Euro continue to bubble away in the background, with periodic announcements that it has been “saved”. These have led to short bursts of confidence until the markets have, on reflection, realised that the problems remain unresolved. And so they will. The Euro...

What is the big deal with LVT?

Written on 4 August 2012. Posted in Taxation.

The UK already has LVT now, in the form of Council Tax and the UBR. We are simply arguing that, to start with, the present system, which is messy and inefficient, needs to be tidied up. Why does everyone make such heavy weather of this, including LVT supporters?

Higher stamp duty puts damper on luxury market

Written on 4 August 2012. Posted in Taxation.

Sales of luxury homes in London have dropped following the stamp duty changes in March. The expected increases in revenue are not materialising. Sales of homes worth more than £2m – the threshold at which the levy rises from 5 to 7 per cent – are down by 24 per cent in the four months since the budget. Sales which would have been at £2m and a bit have now been renegotiated to a bit under,...

Keep the suggestions coming

Written on 31 July 2012. Posted in General.

Some ideas for a change of name. Here are a few that have turned up…

Vested interests and economics theory

Written on 31 July 2012. Posted in Banking.

The views expressed on this web site are almost never voiced by mainstream economists, politicians and journalists, even those who purport to be radical. Were they to do so they would be quickly silenced. One result is that there is no effective challenge to the Neoliberal project, now in full flood in Britain and the US. This lack of effectiveness manifests both as a failure to argue against neoliberalism...

Land Value Tax Bill by Caroline Lucas: debate rescheduled to 26 April

Written on 30 July 2012. Posted in Taxation.

The Private Member’s Bill tabled by Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion was due to have been debated on 1 March but for some reason was not. It is now scheduled for debate on Friday 26 April. The wording of the Bill is to “require the Secretary of State to commission a programme of research into the merits of replacing the Council Tax and Non-domestic rates in England...

Tax avoidance – the posturing continues

Written on 24 July 2012. Posted in Taxation.

People who pay cash in hand to tradesmen are “morally wrong”, damaging the economy and helping tax evaders, Treasury Minister David Gauke has warned. The report, in the Daily Telegraph, has produced over three thousand comments, nearly all of them hostile. Meanwhile, over at the Guardian, veteran warhorse Polly Toynbee has been sounding off about changes to the Council Tax benefit arrangements,...

Massive capital flows to tax havens

Written on 22 July 2012. Posted in Economics.

New research for the Tax Justice Network campaign group – sifting through data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private sector analysts, shows capital flooding out of countries across the world and disappearing into the cracks in the financial system. So what has actually gone offshore? Has this capital been sent out by the shipload?...

Should we change our name?

Written on 21 July 2012. Posted in General.

This is a question that comes up from time to time. We have never been satisfied with the name we have inherited. Land value taxation (LVT) is not a tax but a user charge. The principle is that people pay for what they get and get what they pay for, so there is no free riding. Our proposal, in short, is for an annual ad valorem tax on the annual rental value of land. It is not a one-off payment,...

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