Tag Archives: land tax

Toby Matthews

Opinion: Miliband, Piketty and the Liberal response

By Toby Matthews | Tue 20th May 2014 - 10:15 am

milibandThree weeks ago, Miliband crossed the Rubicon and entered the heartland of Tory ideology. His support for European-style longer and more secure tenancies — and by extension capping rent increases — runs roughshod over a hitherto post-Thatcherite consensus.

Grant Shapps led the Tory riposte with a quick and ludicrous barb: Labour were proposing “Venezuelan-style rent controls”. Most people won’t know the details of Venezuela’s housing policy, but will be sure it’s unlikely to be any worse than our own.

Times have changed. We can see this clearly in that most …

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 45 Comments
Joe Bourke

Opinion: A Mansion Tax to replace higher rate tax?

By Joe Bourke | Wed 18th April 2012 - 10:55 am

Mansion tax is not Land Value Tax, but it is a place to start down the road to shifting a significant part of the tax base from income to wealth.

There seems little argument that mansion tax would be a more effective method of taxing non-resident Non-Doms who acquired over 60% of the properties valued at over £2m in recent times.

The inequalities in wealth in the UK far outstrip inequalities in income. The top 10% of households own more wealth than the rest put together: 0.3 per cent of Britain’s population owns 69 per cent of its land.

The HMRC report …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 16 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Peter Hirst
    Hope does not come just from economic prosperity. The north enjoys wild spaces and mountains where you can walk all day with hardly seeing a soul. It has many v...
  • Neil Sandison
    As a long serving town Councillor i am seeing a growing number of families locked in private rented accomedation with little or no real recreational space and ...
  • Nick Baird
    I'm also surprised the impact of LGR hasn't been more widely discussed, although it's effectively too late now. We are moving from a two-tier to Unitary and ...
  • Peter Hirst
    One criteria that defines humans is the ability to make choices and act on them. We should do more to maximise these choices and empower people to make them wis...
  • Peter Hirst
    Though I agree with the final sentiment of this blog, devolution does not necessarily lead to greater people power. All power is potentially dangerous regardles...