Lib Dems plan annual property tax levy.

kennyboy66_2

The £1m plus idea is clearly a gimmick, however what exactly is wrong with a land or property based tax rather than taxing employment (for example) ?

purch

The £1m plus idea is clearly a gimmick

It's easy to make up headline grabbing policies, when you have no chance of being elected into Government.

StevieJ

kennyboy66 wrote: »

The £1m plus idea is clearly a gimmick, however what exactly is wrong with a land or property based tax rather than taxing employment (for example) ?

I thought they already did this - Council Tax :eek:
BTW Saha and Yobo eased my fantasy football pain over the weekend, two City and two Wigan defenders :eek:

StevieJ

amcluesent wrote: »

Your socialists, in their heart-of-hearts, believe that property is theft. They hate property-rights as it gives people independence from the state and they can't be told what to do and threatened.

What are you going on about if you mean the Labour party, they all own at least one property :rotfl:

Sir_Humphrey

amcluesent wrote: »

Your socialists, in their heart-of-hearts, believe that property is theft. They hate property-rights as it gives people independence from the state and they can't be told what to do and threatened.

Without the State, there would be no such thing as property rights. Jeez.

Generali

kennyboy66 wrote: »

The £1m plus idea is clearly a gimmick, however what exactly is wrong with a land or property based tax rather than taxing employment (for example) ?

The rates was a pretty good way of doing this. Mrs Thatcher's Government (for all their other very obvious successes) decided it was a lousy way of raising tax.

Taxing employment is as silly as subsidising poverty. Post war Governments have very enthusiastically done both. Better to tax pollution and other things we don't want to have happen.

michaels

Very strange really as last time I looked the LDs were in favour of replacing rates with a local income tax precisely because taxing the asset rich / income poor was unfair - anyone more up to date with LD thinking on this?

On the issue of property taxation it seems unfair and inefficient in my book to tax an asset for living in at all - after all there is no tax to pay on the car or caravan parked in the drive. My personal solution would be to scrap stamp duty and remove the CGT exemption for personal residences (beyond an rpi allowance to avoid taxing general inflation) but still taxing the HPI inflation resulting from land being in limited supply.

Generali

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Without the State, there would be no such thing as property rights. Jeez.

That's not the same thing as the state respecting property rights of course.

Most of Europe to the east of the Iron Curtain had strong, large states and little or no respect for private property.

As an aside, it's interesting to note that very few countries, once liberated from state mandated socialism chose to return when they had a choice that wasn't at the end of a gun.

kennyboy66_2

Generali wrote: »

The rates was a pretty good way of doing this. Mrs Thatcher's Government (for all their other very obvious successes) decided it was a lousy way of raising tax.

Taxing employment is as silly as subsidising poverty. Post war Governments have very enthusiastically done both. Better to tax pollution and other things we don't want to have happen.

The simplest way of raising money in this area(rather than have another tax) would be to extend the current council bands, so that someone owning a home worth £4m pays more than someone with a home worth £500k. They currently pay the same.

Graham_Devon

kennyboy66 wrote: »

The simplest way of raising money in this area(rather than have another tax) would be to extend the current council bands, so that someone owning a home worth £4m pays more than someone with a home worth £500k. They currently pay the same.

The problem here is, they use the same services as anyone else. Infact, they probably use less, as they won't have lighting, pavements etc near their home in a lot of cases. A much fairer way would be asking EVRYONE to contribute something to council tax, rather than huge numbers not paying anything at all, but still using the services.

I believe the lib dems have not got it right either. It's like stamp duty, simple HPI can push people into paying who really shouldn't be paying.

Those who should be paying is those making money out of property. Not those living in property.

It's ok saying "well house is worth a million, you must be rich". That's not always the case. They are asset rich, not necesarily cash rich. What would the government do then, ask them to release equity to pay the new tax?

You are left with people like the Wilsons, owning hundreds of properties all under £1m paying no tax, while doddery old Dorothy down the road who's inherited the house through 4 generations and hasn't actually got a bean is expected to cough up.