Skip to content
New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Jump to bottom

Adopt land value taxation #250

Merged
merged 2 commits into from Dec 30, 2014
Merged

Adopt land value taxation #250

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
2 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
3614859
Adopt land value taxation
digitalWestie Dec 4, 2014
2a6b268
Adds footnotes about LVT
digitalWestie Dec 30, 2014
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Diff view
Diff view
9 changes: 7 additions & 2 deletions manifesto/economy.md
View file
Open in desktop
Expand Up @@ -32,10 +32,12 @@ We will support research into a [universal basic income](https://en.wikipedia.or

## Housing

Stamp Duty Land Tax (paid on house purchases) should be reformed, with tax band thresholds linked to the regional average house price. Purchases up to the regional average house price should be zero-rated. In addition, the 'slab' approach of current taxation will be changed to an incremental approach, where only the amount above a threshold is taxed at that rate.

Improve rental rights, such that residential tenants cannot be evicted if they are paying market rate rent and have not damaged the property. Create a general principle that for tenants a property is their home and core to their life, whereas for landlords it is but a piece of property and simply a financial asset.

## Land Value Tax

Adopt Land Value Taxation (LVT)[^2], a charge on the rental value of land not including any improvements made on the site (such as buildings, drainage and services). Valuation to be based on market evidence, in accordance with the optimum use of the land within the planning regulations and updated regularly (at least every 2 years)[^3][^4]. LVT would replace Council Tax, Uniform Business Rates, and Stamp Duty. There will be two rates of Land Value Tax - a national rate and a local rate. The national rate will be decoded after consultation and research. The local rate will be set at the discretion of each local authority. Public open space, public transport infrastructure and open water will all be exempt from LVT. Local and national government property will not be exempt, to encourage the efficient allocation of publicly owned assets.

## Business

Personal income tax is calculated on income generated prior to expenses being deducted. But in business, corporation tax is calculated on any profit generated after expenses have been deducted from income. It is proposed that a study is conducted into the feasability and fairness of calculating them both in the same way: either personal income tax being revised and only calculated after household costs have been deducted (ie taxing household surplus or amount put into savings rather than income), or corporation tax being calculated on the basis of revenue alone.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -77,6 +79,9 @@ We will instruct HM Treasury to produce a roadmap for the future of currency and
The central bank will be required to consider the reduction of inequality (as measured by the GINI coefficient) when formulating monetary policy to balance its existing remit of maintaining price stability and inflation at 2%.

[^1]: [Stop Secret Contracts](http://stopsecretcontracts.org/)
[^2]: [Land Value Taxation Campaign - What is LVT?](http://www.landvaluetax.org/what-is-lvt/)
[^3]: [A Land Value Tax for England](http://www.andywightman.com/docs/LVT_england_final.pdf)
[^4]: [A Land Value Tax for Scotland](http://www.andywightman.com/docs/LVTREPORT.pdf)

## Land Ownership

Expand Down