The Lib Dem conference has just this moment backed the abolition of the Council Tax by a local income tax, overwhelmingly rejecting an amendment in favour of land value tax.
The unamended line of the motion reads: Lib Dems would “Abolish the unfair Council Tax and replace it with a tax based on ability to pay -Local Income Tax is a fairer way to raise local government revenue, as acknowledged by Sir Michael Lyons in his review of local government.”
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8 Comments
I look forward to seeing the figures. the last available had sharing key workers, extended families and even house sharing students suffereing at the expense the land banking “low income” wealthy who got off scot free.
Nick Clegg’s third party figures are utterly ridiculous.
He is from a different school to Old Ming and that’s the all means necessary, exaggerate and fib school. If Ming really has offered him the succession for being a good boy now – bit annoying for members who thought they’d get a vote (cf Labour) – then this is good.
That’s a shame, I would certainly have backed LVT out of the two…
As I’ve said before, it seems strange that we are cutting income tax at a national level but raising it again at a local level! Although LIT is certainly fairer than the perverse Council Tax.
I hope there is still some scope to introduce LVT as part of our national taxation package at some point in the future.
Chris – you’ve been just a bit over-enthusiastic in posting the same point repeatedly on different threads … so I’ve trimmed back a little of your exuberance.
Big mistake – the Tories and Labour now have a mile-wide opening in targeting the one demographic that actually votes for us.
Thanks Mark. I think I’ve stuck similar up twice on two threads? Is that “repeatedly on different threads”. Rather makes my point for me!
In one case (on this post) the comments process appeared to crash so I stuck it up again. And didn’t get the usual – you’ve already said that.
I think most of conference just doesn’t understand LVT at all…
The big problem seems to be that a tax on wealth is seen as bad, yet a tax on income is seen as good.
Quite why this is I don’t know, years of propaganda saying what a good thing income tax is I’d presume.
It may have gone better if there had been a proper amendment. Instead it was just a separate vote, which also deleted the 4p cut in income tax. I considered voting against the deletion myself until it became clear during the debate that it was actually about LVT.
I fully agree with the others here that it would be a mistake to abolish property tax altogether. It would make first homes less affordable.
Balancing the proportion of tax between wealth and income at an appropriate level will always be the holy grail, because a dynamic economy means constantly moving goalposts.
As a LibDem policy decision this was a vital move to influence the public policy debate: it distinguishes us and thereby increases our influence, bringing both the likelihood of policy reform and a LibDem government closer.
As a final, ideal policy to solve all ills, I hope not.