To be scared of Labours Land tax

[Dragongirl10]

Just read about this, Labour are proposing a Land Value Tax on any land owned, could cost thousands a year for anyone even with a small house, not just the rich....they have not publicised this at all.

People with modest homes could be forced to sell or go into debt, or be repossessed...

Rhayader

There are lots of places you can go, Channel Islands, USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Europe, Bermuda, Bahamas.

Well not Europe because most places (apart from Bulgaria) have similar or higher tax. Most US big cities have similar tax burdens. Switzerland won't have you. Hong Kong is a communist state if you are running away from socialism that's a funny place to go.

So some sunny islands, lovely for a holiday. If your residency in the UK is restricted so you can only visit for short periods of time those islands are going to get boring pretty quickly.

Never mind enjoy the sunshine. All 3000 of you in Bermuda.

I work in the NHS and heard some doctors talking about this the other day. Their theory was that the job is stressful and they all work far more hours than they are contracted to so a tax on 80k+ would be a good excuse to cut down to fewer hours and have a better work-life balance. The by-product of that would be money saved on childcare, cleaner, garden maintenance, etc plus problems in the NHS because we all know there are millions of unemployed doctors waiting to step in...

Or Pigletjohn they could try Ireland, or anywhere else in Europe rather than deal with Brexit and this added tax burden, some places have higher CT, some slower - the choice isn't just London or Munich. I find your post very odd and a bit old-fashioned in its view - we aren't the only country in the world with an educated, skilled and dependable workforce, good schools and hospitals - in fact there are many, and a lot of that educated skilled workforce can also move with their company.

And you may say, so what go, but as someone with two children who I want to one day be able to get jobs, my concern is that these companies aren't going to go and then run back once this socialist experiment fails - we aren't special we have just been a good country for business to do well in in the past - if we change that we may not be able to fix it.

PigletJohn oh i really enjoyed your 'sponging parasite' metaphor. You can unblock my drain anytime.

Rufus presumably you don't know what year Olivers was talking about so that was a guess.

In 1979, what was the Personal Allowance inside which Olivers would have paid no tax?

And what was the start of the next highest band that she would have had to be in to have had a 30% rate on her annual earnings? I don't see how a "first job" on a "tiny salary" could have pushed into the higher band.

No idea piglet

I think that was the first time basic rate tax was 30% ... could be wrong as i didnt keep checking every year

It came down from 33%

I think its been pretty much reducing since then

Top rate was reduced to 60% in that same year

No the top 1% is many more than 3000 taxpayers.... around 364,000. There are 15,000 people who earn over 1m£ in the uk.

Why wouldn't Switzerland have us, we hate very high earners with jobs that they want to fill. We wouldn't struggle to get visas anywhere.

I wouldn't mind working in Hong Kong, china isn't even a communist state anymore let alone HK....

I dont have an agenda

I just thought i would have a little look

Didnt every one have a tiny wage in the 70's/80's

And married mans personal allowance was different to single person

Thank you rhaydar

They eat dog in Switzerland

Fun fact

I could have that wrong as well

Of course it's worrying for a lot of people, and just dropping it into the manifesto with no explanation does not help this.

I live in London and we have a nice but not extravagant house, in a up and coming, but still 'rough around the edges' area. It is much bigger and nicer than we could afford if we were first or even second time buyers and this is because it's my 6th house in or around London. We have a low mortgage and significant equity. But this has no bearing on our disposable income. We bought this house because we could afford the repayments.

If we take the land value of our house as 55% of it's value, in order to double our council tax, land value tax would have to be a mere 0.75%. How will this raise additional funds in other areas of the country?

At 3%, our annual land value tax would be an eye watering £14500.

And how would it be managed? With the huge sums involved, houses would have to be constantly re-valued and the tax reassessed. With council tax, the bands are so broad, and cost difference between bands fairly nominal ('00s not 000's) that they are not revalued frequently, but every time the market changes, the lvt would need adjusting.

It's beyond naive to think that top earners won't be able to move. A couple of years ago, one of my best friends moved to the Caymans (forensic accountancy). Another friend had moved the year before (barrister). I have another barrister friend who has gone to the BVIs. My ex (actuary) was constantly being badgered to take a job in Bermuda. A solicitor friend and his team went to Switzerland recently. I've been offered roles in the Bahamas, Australia and the US. Bankers? They could move to NYC or Dublin or Paris or Munich or anywhere else.

Read what previous PPs have said. It's not tax at current levels that scare people. Otherwise they wouldn't be here now. It's big increases for shit results. That's what will get people to leave. And that's the inevitable result of the Labour manifesto.

Halle

What has been included in the manifesto is a statement saying that the current council tax system will be reviewed.

All the thousands of pages of verbiage from the tory marketing journals are just scare stories intended to influence the votes of the credulous.

Do you b

Do you believe that the current council tax system is so perfect that it cannot possibly be improved?

Piglet is right, it's not outlined in the manifesto. But there is a report that labour have said they will take as a starting point.

The reality is that any land value tax would fall harder on London than the rest of the country. I'm not convinced that it would be as high as the 3% but a 1% of land value (55%) would still be pretty high for Londoners who already have very high costs of living.

As a non home owner it would probably help me as London house prices would come down for sure.

Given that it's not strictly laid out in the manifesto there is really no garuntee that this would pass through the lords. Given the amount of land that house owns I really doubt it would. They would need to use the parliament act to get it through which would slow it down at least.

you are still guessing that their will be punitively large, possibly unaffordable, increases on ordinary people in ordinary houses.

I see Theresa has not ruled out an increase in VAT to 60%. Perhaps you should be frightened about that.

However, she has said that she will sell off £6billion worth of hospitals and other NHS assets. Do you remember seeing that trumpetted in the tory marketing journals?

Piglet it will need to raise as much at council tax to be a replacement for council tax. If it's distributed by land value instead of fairly equally as it currently is will obviously hit London hard.

I'm sure council tax can be improved, but not by land value tax which is a ridiculously inaccurate way of measuring a person's ability to pay. If it is as described so far, it is not means tested.

Dan Jarvis for me, hopefully we will get there.

oops sorry wrong thread :) But showing i am quite labour normally!

Rhayader

"If"

the scare stories are coming from the tory marketing journals.

You know they saved up all this fantasy so they could release it when Theresa was at her lowest ebb

But she seems to be getting even lower.

It states in the labour manifesto that they are going to review council tax with a view to changing it to lvt. Given how controversial the poll tax and subsequent council tax have been, surely its natural for people to be curious.....? Or should we just practice apathy? What will be will be....

show me the line you think you are quoting.

piglet is right...it doesnt say that they are reviewing it with a view to changing it to land tax

consider new options’ to reform council tax and business rates such as a Land Value Tax.