shanolrry@gmail.com

By the way, in that ghastly socialist high tax state.... Hong Kong.... there is no freehold for land. Only leasehold. All the land is effectively own by the government. Leaseholders have to pay tax to the government each year.

This has what has funded huge infrastructure projects over the years. The social housing projects in particular are vast. Transport is first rate and cheap. There is no need to own a car. And only last year they gave away $6,000 (HKD) to each resident to help get the economy going.

tench, you need help.

Be VERY careful with property tax not to get Britain into the same abject unholy mess as the US where only a rich white elite, earning the salaries of lawyers and CEOs can afford to live in a house in a decent neighborhood because the property taxes are cripplingly high. Most pensioners lose their home, renovations and extensions are shunned for fear of tax hikes, ergo bad neighborhoods never improve but just continue to decline. In some States property taxes are the principle cause of mass repossessions. Arguably the whole credit default debacle could never have happened if America's property tax system resembled the UK. I'm all for progressive income tax... property tax absolutely NOT

So we're going to tax all the farmers out of business, and then end up starving like Zimbabwe?

Great idea.

people will buy into the property tax if they see the immediate reduction in income/business taxes.

create a land tax and drop national insurance for tax simplicity (which we all know is income tax and a tax on employment) and drop corporation tax to 15% to make the UK internationally competitive (this measure should improve growth prospects of the UK too).

If you tax income fairly comprehensively, or capital gains separately (as is done except on homes), then any gains on land tax should be included.

Why not just put up capital gains tax and then capture the profits that people make on land speculation? And also (hopefully) get other kinds of speculation as well.

There is no point in treating land welath or land profit any different from any other, unless you believe in discredited economic theories (classical economics) or fringe political philosophies (left-libertarianism).

Just tax individuals more comprehensively, I say.

"Sound the blast for freedom boys, and sound it far and wide,
March along to victory for God is on our side,
While the voice of nature thunders o’er the rising tide,
God made the land for the people!

The land, the land, ‘twas God who gave the land,
The land, the land, the ground on which we stand,
Why should we be beggars with the ballot in our hand?
God gave the land to the people!"

Lloyd George Lives!

There must be a tax on the productive value of land per acre, other than that occupied by the homes of the less well off, perhaps making possible the abolition of stamp duty, and in any event establishing and enforcing the principle that no one should own land other than in order to make use of it; this was proposed by Andy Burnham when he was a candidate for Leader of the Labour Party.

There must also be a statutory requirement of planning permission for change of use if it is proposed to turn a primary dwelling into a secondary dwelling, a working family home into a weekend or holiday home.

Buy the book here – http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/confessions-of-an-old-labour-high-.... (Oh, and ignore the negative comments, which are all by the same person, a former student of mine who has mental health problems.)

I actually find it it somewhat odd that we don't have one already, although perhaps the history of its abolition to suit sectional interests should not come as a surprise. The question of what effect it would have is certainly intriguing. I find it hard to see downsides except in the intial implementation, but they manage to do it in a number of Western countries and I personally keeep stumbling across estate agents trying to value everything in sight.

It would be beneficial to more people than not, provided working land and public land set aside for nature reserves etc are assessed differently. It could be progressive. It could help rebalance taxation away from productivity and possibly provide incentives to reduce the susbstantial disparity between large and small (and non!) land owners in this country. Like with income tax there could be a threshold below which individual home owners and small agricultural enterprises would be exempt (the exact, but desirable, opposite effect of current council taxes and agricultural subsidies).

As for that last post by "trench", I shouldn't really feed you but it's a) totally beside the point of this article, b) criminal sociopaths have a way of saying anything to get their way regardless of what culture failed to get a grip on them, c) it's so bloody obvious it's wrong that there isn't really any discussion to be had and d) I'm pretty certain that nothing Mehdi had ever said or written casts doubt on the default notion that he finds scumbags of that ilk just as revolting as do I (and presumably, but for your ghoulish attempt to transparently exploit the issue, you).

let's tax milk!!! babies ned that so it's a nice little earner that one, those rich b@stards deserve it, what with their milk drinking habits.
Oh hang on, a land tax is like taxing milk-phew.
Good one
Also, does anyone own the sun? maybe we could tax the light, people would hapily pay for light , and added to the fact that when it shines you don't use so much electricity it's a no brainer.
Taxing the land, is there anything that can't be taxed? even Mehdi is quite taxing.

Have to be careful that land tax does not screw farmers who are, largely, not wealthy

rob andersen,

If nobody produced milk, so there were only a fixed, finite supply and everyone needed access to it in order to live, then it would indeed be fair to tax people for holding milk. However, this is not the case for milk and so milk and land are not analogous

This will apply to the Royals of course?

Marcus, mansion/land/property tax would be instead of existing taxes, not on top of them.

The Tory Reform Group are starting to get on board with Land Value Tax too. It's a cross-party idea that's time has come.

It's worth remembering that we did have land-value based taxation right up until the 19th century, when the aristocrat-controlled Lords finally did away with it shifting the state's revenue source onto labour. Poor old Churchill tried to bring it back in 1911 and got the right for the Commons to overrule the Lords, but never then managed to ram land value taxation back through. Lloyd George was also a fan.

These days our political leaders seem to be too timid to do anything unless a bunch of think tanks endorse it, and with the exception of some nutty housing stuff from Policy Exchange the only think tanks that gain any traction are extremely centrist and safe in their thinking.

For the increasing number of people priced out of home ownership and forced to rent in the iniquitous private sector, land value taxation to bring prices down can't come quickly enough.