The fairest tax we've never had
July 11, 2000 12:00 AM
A shift in taxation to stop strangling business and instead raise £50bn a year by taxing land will be discussed in a Liberal Democrat-led debate at Hounslow Council.
Hounslow Liberal Democrats hope for cross party support when they use a debate on council funding to break the ice on introducing a tax whose time has finally come.
Land Value Taxation - a system that taxes land, rather than the activities taking place on it - was proposed more than a century ago and is widely recognised as the best and fairest tax never to be properly tried in Britain.
With income tax rises ruled out for political reasons, demands for increased spending materialising on all fronts, and companies getting ever more skillful at reducing their tax bills, a tax on land represents the way forward.
It could raise up to £50bn a year and would replace existing taxes rather than add to them, shifting tax away from jobs and enterprise and onto pollution and resource usage.
Hounslow Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Ray Fincher, inviting the public to the debate, said:
"Land Value Taxation is fairer and would require less red tape to administer.
"The economy would benefit as it does not penalise success - at the moment businesses are strangled by taxes on their labour, buildings, machinery, and profit.
"It would also be almost impossible to dodge - not even the most cunning of accountants could stash land away in an offshore tax haven."
Ends
Notes to editors:
- Land Value Taxation was first proposed in 1879 by economist Henry George in his book Progress and Poverty, and proved immediately popular with both socialists and liberals. It was briefly law between Philip Snowdon's 1931 budget, and 1934 when the Conservatives abolished it.
- It works by taxing landowners once a year on the unimproved value of their land: if land prices go up, perhaps because of urban regeneration, so does the tax. It is not linked to the use of the land, so a growing business will not find itself paying more each year.
- Recent reports by the Scottish Office Land Reform Policy Group and the Urban Task Force both recommended examining the scheme as an alternative to existing taxes.
- The Liberal Democrat-led debate will take place at the Hounslow Borough Council meeting of 18th July, starting at 7.30pm. Public welcome.
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