Labour (along with similar proposals from the Greens and Lib Dems) proposes to introduce a Land Value Tax. (LVT)—hereafter called the “garden tax”, which will be based on three per cent of the value of land for each property.
For many homeowners, this could represent a massive increase in their annual tax bill and force the sale of gardens in order to reduce bills.
“If you own a property with a large garden, your tax bill will increase by a large amount per annum. Many homeowners will be forced to sell their properties, or alternatively sell their gardens when Labour introduces the LVT. Furthermore, the LVT will be related to the area where the property is located. For example, a property with a large garden in for example Chelsea, London will be hit by a higher increase in annual tax to pay than a property owned in a poorer part of the country,” a property adviser revealed.
Moving from a property-based tax to a land-based tax would cause great instability in Britain’s property market, where many homes would be unsellable. Additionally, many homeowners would not be able to afford the vast tax increases therefore be forced to sell, but here is the conundrum, who will they sell their overpriced tax heavy property to? Not many will be able to afford to buy the LVT heavy homes, including stamp duty and all other costs involved.
House prices across the country would therefore eventually crash to the bottom, which is one of the reasons Labour would introduce such an evil tax. Impoverishing the entire nation is a major policy of the Marxist Labour manifesto, which espouses equality for all citizens in socialist poverty.
This opinion piece clearly doesn’t understand Land Rend (Classical Economic Rent) which was understood by virtually all Classical Economists. What we see in the above opinion is both a lack of economic understanding in addition to a lack of ethical first principles.
Land is a free gift of nature. Lond rent is a differential based on the relative value of one plot of land compared to another. Ethically, everyone has an equal right to use land, limited only by the equal right of others. Private land ownership of land is a state granted privilege.
Land is required for all life and economic activity. If yew believe that some people have a greater right to use land, then you necessarily believe that some people have a greater right to exist than others do. There is no avoiding that conclusion.
When you pay the rental value of land to the community, you are only paying what other people are willing to pay to use land. That value is determined by the market (people) deciding how much value comparable plots of land have to each other (typically recognized as compared to the least valuable land in use, or even ‘rent free land’)
No one is ‘impoverished’ by paieng what the value of a free gift of nature provides. Land rent is a social surplus, and by publicly collecting and distributing the land rent, everyone gets their fair share of a free gift of nature. This ‘value’ has absolutely nothing to do with anyone’s labor or individual effort, it is income that the land earns.
If Labour could do it they’d tax everyone for breathing.