{"id":17501,"date":"2012-09-26T10:29:21","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T09:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=17501"},"modified":"2012-09-26T10:29:21","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T09:29:21","slug":"its-time-to-tax-the-castle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/09\/26\/its-time-to-tax-the-castle\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s time to tax the castle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simon Jenkins makes of his valued interventions this morning in the Guardian (I say that as he also makes some which aren't valued) when noting<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat hero, is most odd. He quotes Keynes on boosting demand, yet serves in a government that suppresses it. He wants to lend to business, yet pours money into banks that simply hoard it. Strangest of all, he\u00a0calls for a \"mansion tax\" when there\u00a0is one already. It is called the council tax.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jenkins is right. I support the idea of a land\u00a0value tax but recognise the problems of creating one. If we added bands I, J, K, L, M and maybe more to the current council tax banding and charged heavily progressive rates, reducing the tax due on lower bands at the\u00a0same time we might overcome one of the gross injustices in the UK tax system.<\/p>\n

Jenkins should go further though. I some time ago suggested an empty property tax<\/a> for the UK. The TUC endorsed the demand. There are hundreds of thousands of empty properties in this country that could be in use, but aren't. By imposing a higher rate of council tax on these properties rather than cancelling the tax due on them they could be forced back into the\u00a0market\u00a0 Do the same on sites with planing permission for housing where after two years they haven't been built and then you could force land into use. This is an LVT that's virtually \"shovel ready now\".<\/p>\n

But there's one more thing to do. The\u00a0Telegraph highlights this morning\u00a0the extraordinary \u00a334 million\u00a0capital\u00a0gain<\/a> TV presenter Nick Ross has made on his home. Is that fair?\u00a0Clearly not. He's gained by chance, not endeavour. No one needs a \u00a334 million home. And he has one because hot money - much ex tax havens or\u00a0fleeced\u00a0from the\u00a0economy by bankers - flooded into London to\u00a0exclude most under the age of 40 from the housing market, maybe for life.<\/p>\n

What can be done\u00a0about this? Well, council tax reform as noted above. But also a tax on capital gains on houses too. I'd exempt all sales of less than \u00a31 million from the charge - which is incredibly\u00a0generous even in London (where house\u00a0prices have to fall - and that is the intent of this tax). On sales above that the gain would be on that part of the sale price over \u00a31 million less the same proportionate part of the cost of the\u00a0property\u00a0indexed by\u00a0retail\u00a0prices (not house prices: the measure is aimed to\u00a0tackle\u00a0excess house price inflation) over the period of ownership. Normal CGT allowances would also apply. I'd have the tax due at the owner's highest marginal income tax rates - but I have always believed that CGT and income tax rates should be aligned.<\/p>\n

Yes the rich will squeal. I won't\u00a0apologise: young people have to have access to housing and the inter-generational\u00a0unfairness of current\u00a0prices\u00a0demands radical action, now. The most able have to pay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simon Jenkins makes of his valued interventions this morning in the Guardian (I say that as he also makes some which aren’t valued) when noting:
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}