What would a land value tax look like instead of council tax?

[Newmeagain]

Just saw something about this in the news. Concerned about potential impact on home owners in London who may not necessarily be wealthy - ie no other assets to sell and not a huge income.

does anyone know?

Do you not think we pay enough taxes already.

Not for the changing demographics unfortunately

I’m really not

I think it would be an excellent idea. It means you can tax landlords and people who own large houses but live overseas, and it is a very difficult tax for cheats to avoid because property ownership is pretty clear.

they could start with only properties over £5million and work down.

Ok that’s fine but a lot of people do want more services and if they want that they’ll have to pay more. They’ve spent years moaning about lack of police officers on the streets (Tory’s got rid of 20,000) or not being able to get care services from the council.

But if you tax landlords they will pass it on to the tenants in rent

don’t disagree on foreign owners

the thing I read suggested uk residents would also pay it on land they own outside the uk too.

Yes but tenants won’t be paying the council tax, so they should beable to afford some extra rent.

To be honest, it would make a lot of sense.

But it should replace stamp duty and not council tax. It should also be very progressive.

The removal of stamp duty would incentivise people to move to where they needed to be, rather than compromising. It would also stop endless loft and basement conversions.

The land tax would incentivise people to occupy property they owned, to have the house they needed rather than as much as they can afford, and for older people to downsize. Finally, it would reap in sums from foreign property holders and increase liquidity in the property market.

The land tax would incentivise people to occupy property they owned, to have the house they needed rather than as much as they can afford, and for older people to downsize. Finally, it would reap in sums from foreign property holders and increase liquidity in the property market.

it is a good idea

It will never happen. To have system reform this big you would need to value all houses. There is no easy way of doing this unless you use the current council tax bandings. So you'd swap one system for another system which is pretty much the same.
The only way of doing it would be the keep council tax and add this on top based on the current council tax bandings. There's no way people would stand for an additional tax of this scale.

Yes I get it but do it from general taxation

so much wastage with all the other stuff going on atm which should be used in this way

The reason we have a council tax is the per-person poll tax was a little bit unpopular.

The per-person poll tax was intended to replace "the rates" where a homeowner (note the singular) paid a figure vaguely related to a value drawn from a tombola in the 1800s. This meant a house of 5 would be paying the same "rates" as a house of one, on the same street. Not that the Conservative government of the 1980s cared about fairness.

CT deffo' needs reforming!

Yes I get it but do it from general taxation

which taxation.

Then there was the chimney tax. So people knocked down their chimneys
And
The window tax. We can still see blocked up windows on houses after that one. We have three
And
The brick tax based on number of bricks. So builders just made much larger bricks.

Neither am I. Our council tax is huge
We don’t even have street lighting or tarmac on the roads.
Bin men hardly ever come
Etc.

If they want more they really need to step up
Catch 22 I know

The problem with getting it "from taxation" is that a local sales tax is unworkable anywhere where people are allowed to walk from their borough to the cheaper one next door.

If you plonk that tax on top of income tax (i.e. only paid by working people) then you will find the people who don't pay it start voting for free unicorns.

The fairest way is that everyone living in a borough pays their share of the bill.

And we're back to a poll tax.

My tax would go up six times if it was 1% of the value. I live in a small terraced house but in an expensive area. But my services are the same as someone living in the same house five miles away but worth half- how is that fair that they pay half? I don’t earn that much, the house was the only thing I got when my DH passed away.
I do remember the poll tax though which did penalise the less well off.

The whole point though is to penalise the rich and as a person who owns an expensive house you are considered "rich".

It's the politics of envy again.

I think council tax should be based on occupancy levels.
More people mean more people using the services the council are accommodating. More people means more generation of rubbish for the bin men etc
A one bedroom property will still have a maximum occupancy of two people so they should be paying less than a four bedroom property even if the former is worth more

I assume that’s just logical tbh

Wasn't that the poll tax

That is how it works where I live. The property owner pays the tax based on current estimated market value of the property. That means landlords are technically responsible for the bill, not renters, though obviously landlords include that cost in the rent calculation.

the system overall works well. Rising home values result in better services and most people are happy about this.

There can be problems for seniors when their house value continues to rise, but they are no longer earning additional income. Some areas deal with this by providing an exemption on increases for a primary residence for senior citizens or people with long-term
disabilities. The exemptions mean their taxes do not increase at the same rate or at all while they remain in residence.

I agree
Its nonsense
Council tax pays for services
Those services are listed on our bill
If a tax like this was introduced it’s no longer about usage and purely a wealth tax

I think they reband houses at the point of sale so if you have stuck a great big extension on your band B the new owners might find it’s a D/E

More people mean more people using the services the council are accommodating. More people means more generation of rubbish for the bin men etc

But age also impacts spending of local councils.

That’s interesting. Is it a nationwide tax? If so, is there much of a disparity in house values between areas?