5 Responses

1. Carol Wilcox says:

   February 3 2009 at 1:52 am

   Excellent stuff.

   But one thing needs to be added: the Obama programme of infrastructure renewal should be funded by a land value tax because needful public investment in infrastructure always feeds straight into increased land values. Land cannot be hidden in a tax haven. And one of the main beneficiaries of the land price bubble have been the banks in the form of excessive mortgage repayments. 100% collection of land rent (LVT) would prevent such a bubble from ever being inflated again.

   Richard, LVT is a totally progressive tax. Owners of valuable land are not poor. There are simple, equitable solutions to the problem of asset rich and income poor, which I guess is what bothers you.
2. Bill says:

   February 3 2009 at 4:26 pm

   Sorry Carol, although I am a supporter of Land Valuation Taxation (LVT) in principle, you have a few things muddled.

   The United States is federation not a centralised state like the UK; I doubt Obama has the power to tax land and in most states of the Union land tax, whether rates or LVT, are a matter for individual mayoralities and municipalities.

   One of the reasons the LVT discussion fails to get off the ground in the UK is the strident voices of pseudo-supporters who see it as a method of nationalising land and destroying the capitalist system. The primary benefit of LVT is the efficient use of land added to which is the ease of tax collection. The destruction of the capitalist system should be left to experts like Gordon Brown.

   Finally, owners of valuable land frequently lack the resources to invest and make the most efficient use of thier demise. Business Rates are a tax on investment because improved land pays more whereas LVT, at an appropriate rate, encourages investment.
3. Carol Wilcox says:

   February 5 2009 at 1:04 pm

   Bill, I believe that there are such things as Federal taxes and I doubt whether the Constitution prevents a Federal land value tax.

   I totally disagree with you that in order to promote LVT you have to spout the same set of mantras. We should tailor our message according to the audience.

   Full LVT is indeed an efficient substitute for land nationalisation and that is how lefties can sell LVT. I personally have great faith in the left to produce new policies to stop the appropriation of surplus labour by the owners of capital, banks and landowners – by nationalisation of provision of goods and services where the market has failed, the creation of new forms of common ownership and the acceptance of markets where they work for the benefit of society as a whole.

   So far as spats between left and right in the LVT movement is concerned, the Labour Land Campaign has initiated a joint UK LVT group which has already issued a press release about its aims and values. Some of us like to co-operate – we believe that this is human nature not the cut-throat instincts which the right seem to think are the drivers of human progress.
4. Bill says:

   February 5 2009 at 3:25 pm

   Carol, you are correct the US Constitution does not, on its face, prevent a land value tax, but apart from the exemption conferred by the sixteenth amendment in regard to income taxes there is a requirement that federal taxes are apportioned with regard to each state’s population. A tax apportioned by population is not a land value tax so in reality the US Constitution does preclude President Obama imposing LVT.

   Your comment about a set of mantras is silly and insulting. Tailoring the message according to the audience is firstly deceitful and secondly suggests that the idea is not actually thought out.

   The term ‘Full LVT’ is absurd. If you are seriously suggesting that the state should confiscate all privately owned land, in contravention of the Human Rights Acts, then say so; do not pretend it is merely a tax.

   As Henry VIII found out, if you destroy the land market by grabbing it all then it loses its value. If the state is going to grab all the land then nobody in their right mind is going invest anything in improvements.

   The split in the ‘LVT movement’, such as it is, is not between left and right but between those who understand what LVT is and those who have chanced upon it and see it as a disguise for their outdated and unmerchantable pseudo-Marxist claptrap.
5. Carol Wilcox says:

   February 5 2009 at 5:19 pm

   Bill, you can google my name and that of the Labour Land Campaign to get a fuller picture of our views. You do not even provide your name so that I can establish your credentials.

   Why is it always the anti-left who are the most secretive and the most insulting?

   Further to your comment, by ‘full LVT’ I mean the collection of the full land rent for public benefit – which is exactly what Henry George prescribed.