Fun piece by Charles Goodhart on why and how Rachel Reeves could use a land tax to fill that £22bn black hole she keeps talking about:
Once the challenge of transitioning to a tax on land value is overcome, other issues become much easier
That said, like every piece about how you could raise £22bn, my inner spirit-sapping realist goes 'these all seem much more politically painful than just breaking your promise on national insurance'.
Rachel Reeves has said there is a £22bn “black hole” in the public finances, and that she’ll have to raise tax to fill it. Labour are heavily constrained by their pre-election promises…
A LVT seems unlikely, but that's because "enemies of growth" is a thing, and the only helpful concept Truss came up with (though she defined it poorly).
What is the logic for removing income tax completely and replacing it entirely with a land tax? This would be penal for example on pensioners with a large garden. I also don't understand why the writer is so concerned about a drop in house prices. I think this would be a beneficial outcome.
Why can’t they just tax every financial transaction on the internet? It’s ruined the high street and would supplement the councils to get their towns back on their feet
It seems like the 2010 Mirrlees Review of taxation has been completely memory-holed. That argued the government could get the same amount of money for less cost by coherent reform of taxation, including the introduction of Land Value Tax. www.nuffieldfoundation.org/news/mirrlee...
Britain’s tax system is ripe for reform in ways that could significantly increase people’s welfare and improve the performance of the economy, according to a landmark review chaired by the Nobel laure...
His numbers at the end are bonkers but man I would take downwards pressure on home prices as a massive reason to do this regardless of the macro situation (And I have a mortgage in a large city so would personally lose out blah blah blah)
Last paragraph’s a bit startling. I can’t get my head around what that would do, economically or socially - feels like a book topic!
The Liberals were banging on about site value rating in the 1970s (the previous name for this proposal) so much so that it became a standing joke.