Land of the free: introducing land value taxation
Henry Law, Hon. Secretary of the Land Value Taxation Campaign
Henry took a degree in Chemistry at Lincoln College, Oxford, but like most graduates in the subject, his career was in another field altogether, in his case landscape design and town planning, where he worked mostly in London. Henry is is the Hon. Secretary of the Land Value Taxation Campaign. He is retired and currently lives in Sweden.
www. landvaluetax. org
Land Value Taxation is an idea that has been turning up recently in the wake of the financial crisis. If one looks further back, however, it can be seen that it was widely discussed in the period from the closing years of the nineteenth century until the beginning of World War II. Even then it was not really new. The concept goes back to time immemorial, having been a major or sole source of public revenue in the great empires of classical antiquity.
There are many different taxes that could be called“ Land Value Taxation” but there is only one that is not riddled with problems and injustices of one sort or another. Classic Land Value Taxation( LVT) is a tax charged on the annual rental value of land. Although described as a tax, it is not really a tax at all, but a payment for benefits received. It would replace, not add to, existing taxes.
How LVT works
The value of every parcel of land in Britain would be assessed regularly and the land value tax levied as a percentage of those assessed values. The procedure would be similar to that for existing property taxes such as Council Tax and Business Rates which would, logically, be the first to be replaced by LVT, though as national taxes since land values differ so widely across the country.
' It would not be a tax on conservatories, garages, granny annexes and other improvements that people make to their homes '
There are, however, important differences from Britain’ s present property taxes.“ Land” means the site alone, not counting any improvements. The value of buildings, crops, drainage or any other works which people have erected or carried out on each plot of land would be ignored. On the other hand it would be assumed that all neighbouring properties were developed as at the time of the valuation. Thus, it would not be a tax on conservatories, garages, granny annexes and other improvements that people make to their houses. Other things being equal, a vacant site in a row would be assessed at the same value as the adjacent sites occupied by buildings in use.
revolutionise. it 22