Comment - Land Value Tax Campaign

A cheering revelation

Written on 24 December 2011. Posted in Taxation.

Ignore, dear reader, all the news of doom and gloom, because the good times are just around the corner. All talk to the contrary is nothing more than a diversion, because the Chancellor has firm plans to turn the country’s economy round. Our sleuth, who continues to avoid detection as a cleaner in the Treasury building, has sent us a copy of what, written in his own hand, looks like the Chancellor’s...

Tax system has crashed

Written on 20 December 2011. Posted in Taxation.

A scathing report from MPs questioning whether HM Revenue & Customs and its top officials are acting legally in the way they handle tax disputes and “sweetheart” deals with major companies started a furious row last night. The British tax system is broken and not fit for purpose. It was never more than a system of organised theft and a structure of fines and penalties for successfully...

King James Bible 400th anniversary

Written on 17 December 2011. Posted in Religion.

Leviticus 25 And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, continues…

Tax at root of EU squabble

Written on 14 December 2011. Posted in Taxation.

The present EU squabble has, we would suggest, come about primarily because contemporary tax systems are not sufficiently robust. From an economic perspective, they are little more than a structure of fines and penalties for successfully engaging in legal economic activity. This sends a particular message to which people in different strata of society will respond so as to turn the situation to...

Portas retailing report published

Written on 13 December 2011. Posted in General.

Last May, with town centre vacancy rates doubling in the space of two years, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister asked retailing expert Mary Portas to look into how we can create more prosperous and diverse high streets. Her report is published today by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, together with a supplementary document with the title Understanding High Street Performance,...

Top 10 property hotspots touched by transport improvements

Written on 9 December 2011. Posted in Public Transport.

Daily Telegraph article here. More taxpayers’ investment that will end up in private pockets.

Ireland: folly heaped on folly

Written on 8 December 2011. Posted in Banking.

In our previous comment on the Irish U-turn on the proposed ban on upwards-only rent revision clauses, we referred to an article in the FT giving the background to the decision. One of the reasons was pressure put on the Irish government by an organisation called NAMA, the National Assets Management Agency. This is a state body set up by the previous Fine Gael government to take over the toxic loans...

Irish government caves in to landowning interest

Written on 7 December 2011. Posted in Home-Owner-Ism.

The Irish government has scrapped plans to pass a law that would have enabled commercial tenants to remove upward-only rent review clauses from their leases. Ireland’s minister for finance said in his 2012 budget speech that it was not possible to develop a scheme to tackle the issue that would not be vulnerable to legal challenge or compensation claims from landlords. In the boom years of...

Interview from Occupy London

Written on 5 December 2011. Posted in Economics.

{jumi *5}{/jumi}Robin Smith, interviewed from Occupy London, gives a complete explanation of what is wrong with the economy.

How to pay for infrastructure

Written on 29 November 2011. Posted in Public Transport.

The government has just announced its infrastructure programme as a means of getting the economy going. We have advocated this ever since the economy started to go bad a few years ago. But… a scheme like the London Underground’s Northern Line extension to Battersea ought to give rise to a land value uplift of several times what it will cost to build. This amounts to a gift to the landowners...

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