VAT is not so clever either
Tax Research may not promote the LVT case but Richard Murphy, who runs it, certainly provides us with a steady stream of evidence about how rotten the tax system is. In this latest piece he has focussed on Value Added Tax. Pity he refuses to draw the obvious conclusion.
Isn’t the UBR already a land value tax?
We have heard more than a few times that we already have LVT in the form of the UBR. We have even come across this statement in government responses when we have put the LVT case.
True, the Uniform Business Rate is a sort of land value tax, but a very poorly implemented one. Land in residential use is substantially exempt, being subject to the Council Tax instead. Vacant land is exempt. Agricultural...
Taxpayers funding next property boom
The government is laying the foundations to the next property boom with your taxes.
Enterprise Zones a giveaway to landlords – official
A Report by Cambridge Econometrics for HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs concluded that 100% of the benefits from NNDR relief are passed into rents and therefore accrue to landlords, although the range of uncertainty surrounding this statistical estimate puts the boundary at somewhere between 65% and 150%. Either way, the general conclusion is that the majority of tax-saving benefits from NNDR...
OAPs mugged
There is an irony about the Chancellor’s choice of OAPs as a source of revenue to pay for the tax cuts for the seriously wealthy, because those most vocal against LVT have claimed that it would hit elderly widows. All of a sudden, they no longer matter.
The increase in stamp duty is idiotic. It raises little revenue since the tax liability only arises on the sale of a property. In addition,...
Another taxpayer handout to landlords
Demand for rented accommodation in London exceeds supply. The result: rents go up and many tenants are being forced to move out. In January the government is cutting the local housing allowance so that poorer tenants will have their subsidy reduced by anything from £9 – £74 per week. Shelter estimate that 130,000 households will either be evicted or forced to move.
Enterprise Zones designated
The government has now designated all its new Enterprise Zones – a scatter of locations across the country where concessions include exemption from business rates and fast-tracking of planning applications.
As with the Enterprise Zones in the 1980s, their main effect will be to generate some development and attract commercial activity, most of which would probably have gone somewhere else...
How income tax causes unemployment
One of our members stated in a discussion group that “Progressive income tax” causes unemployment at the bottom end and is avoided at the top. This produced the following response...
In all honesty, I don’t know how you can say that progressive income tax causes unemployment at the bottom.
We have discussed the matter many times on this website, but the reply given was a concise...
Chancellor clarifies benefits statement
Reports are coming in of a heated exchange at the Conservatory Party conference between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and representatives from The Landed Gentry Association.
A spokesman told us, “Earlier in the week the Chancellor made a statement that he intended to put ‘a limit on benefits received’. Naturally we sought urgent clarification that this policy would not affect...