How fucked are we?

[Borin' Baggie]

As unworkable and unfair as the poll tax

Care to explain?

Ok, here goes.

The issue we have in this country is getting the thresholds , levels and valuation of such a tax right and to get the right balance in both the residential and commercial sectors.

I think we need to revisit SDLT. When Osbourne changed the Stamp Duty rates the levels received by HMRC dropped. SDLT is the only tax where you pay tax on a tax ( having to include Vat on rent , purchase price).

It will be interesting to see the levels of receipts during the stamp duty holiday.

It would be a massive exercise for VOA to value all Properties and they are Simply not enough district valuers.

A land valuation tax will also hit those on lower incomes in higher value houses who have stayed in them for many years and whose income is now disproportionate to the value of the property.

Then there is the thorny subject of land speculation and how to tax At a time when we are still building too few properties this would attack smaller developers.

Property is an easy target for taxation but one of the bedrocks of the economy, the first sector to drop in a recession.

It is a tax based on the unimproved value of the land, not the value of the property. It's designed to completely ignore the value of the property. People on lower incomes tend to live on lower value land and have less of it, they tend not to live in zone 1 London or own multiple acres of greenbelt. And land hoarding would be disincentivised as property developers would be paying a land tax on land they own so would want to build houses as soon as they can get planning permission, on top of building higher density housing as homeowners would be paying less tax.

And I'm sorry, but if you're living in zone 1 London on an income of £10k a year, bloody move? I'm not going to have sympathy for these people, I'm going to think they're completely insane.

[Jack Halford]

Yes, I should have said land rather than houses.

The issues of valuation Level of tax and thresholds still remains. How do you value the benefits of local infrastructure? Some examples of LVT look at the highest valuation of the best use of that land. Whilst it isn’t supposed to be passed onto tenants it is bound to drive up rents.

Higher Density housing...... I’ll be tongue in cheek but on a lot of sites I’ve seen you can’t get much denser. The housebuilders will no doubt lobby against this.

You will still get high value land outside London occupied by single income individuals/ families.

[Borin' Baggie]

Yes, I should have said land rather than houses.

The issues of valuation Level of tax and thresholds still remains. How do you value the benefits of local infrastructure? Some examples of LVT look at the highest valuation of the best use of that land. Whilst it isn’t supposed to be passed onto tenants it is bound to drive up rents.

Higher Density housing...... I’ll be tongue in cheek but on a lot of sites I’ve seen you can’t get much denser. The housebuilders will no doubt lobby against this.

You will still get high value land outside London occupied by single income individuals/ families.

Undeveloped land valuation is much easier than property valuation as you've got fewer variables and can be very easily done through multivariate analysis which is simple statistics and then applied to the land registry through a GIS, on top of that it's very easily updated. This isn't a novel implementation either, this is something that's been applied in multiple countries for decades. It's easier than and more flexible than the stupid system we use for council tax, something that doesn't reflect the modern housing market as it's such a pain to review and update.

High density housing pertains to building upwards, three or four story houses, not building houses closer. There's loads of scope for that. It's a more efficient use of land. Most houses in this country are not three or four story houses. If you marry this with robust regulations then you get high quality and spacious affordable housing instead. On top of that, an LVT encourages more houses to be built as land hoarding by property developers is financially disincentivised so couple that with market demand you can see more variety in housing.

And the Liberal Democrats have done multiple analysis on LVT. Outside of zone 1 london (including very expensive places like central Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh or places like North Leamington, places where it already makes no financial sense for low income people to live) residents will not be penalised for owning land unless they own a lot of it, by which I mean acres and acres. In fact, if you replace council tax with a land value tax the vast majority, I'm talking 85%+, would pay less tax with no impact on tax receipts. The people paying more would be very asset rich.

[Loanee]

Tories and their rich friends will be totally fine, as always, whereas us normal folk will pick up the bill

[Protheroe]

Yes, I should have said land rather than houses.

The issues of valuation Level of tax and thresholds still remains. How do you value the benefits of local infrastructure? Some examples of LVT look at the highest valuation of the best use of that land. Whilst it isn’t supposed to be passed onto tenants it is bound to drive up rents.

Higher Density housing...... I’ll be tongue in cheek but on a lot of sites I’ve seen you can’t get much denser. The housebuilders will no doubt lobby against this.

You will still get high value land outside London occupied by single income individuals/ families.

Undeveloped land valuation is much easier than property valuation as you've got fewer variables and can be very easily done through multivariate analysis which is simple statistics and then applied to the land registry through a GIS, on top of that it's very easily updated. This isn't a novel implementation either, this is something that's been applied in multiple countries for decades. It's easier than and more flexible than the stupid system we use for council tax, something that doesn't reflect the modern housing market as it's such a pain to review and update.

High density housing pertains to building upwards, three or four story houses, not building houses closer. There's loads of scope for that. It's a more efficient use of land. Most houses in this country are not three or four story houses. If you marry this with robust regulations then you get high quality and spacious affordable housing instead. On top of that, an LVT encourages more houses to be built as land hoarding by property developers is financially disincentivised so couple that with market demand you can see more variety in housing.

And the Liberal Democrats have done multiple analysis on LVT. Outside of zone 1 london (including very expensive places like central Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh or places like North Leamington, places where it already makes no financial sense for low income people to live) residents will not be penalised for owning land unless they own a lot of it, by which I mean acres and acres. In fact, if you replace council tax with a land value tax the vast majority, I'm talking 85%+, would pay less tax with no impact on tax receipts. The people paying more would be very asset rich.

This. Land Value Tax is about the only new tax that Adam Smith would approve of.

[LIMABAGGIE]

As a Country and as a Club......very.