What are your thoughts on replacing council tax with land value tax?

[MikeRafone]

So what are the thoughts to scrap council tax and instead tax value land?

that is what Andy Burnham wants to do if he gets where he want

he sees council tax as a regressive tax, as unfair and wants to see it changed to a land value tax.

Churchill was. In favour of Land tax as a fairer system. Advocated for by Adam Smith the founder of modern economics and Milton Friedman adviser to Margaret Thatcher

Well market value will increase as I would assume landlords and owners of comparable properties will see the same hike in costs

But the freeholder will
pass it on. Won’t it encourage higher buildings? And how do they value the land? I live in a London terrace, I have a building behind me but those up the road have gardens half again longer because they don’t (have a building behind, just a garden then a house). Currently we are all in the same council tax band. Will they then have to pay a third or so more? And if you build a big extension, so your house is worth a lot more, you don’t pay any more?

The tenant can start a dispute over the rent increase, the rent can’t bbbe raised until the. Dispute is heard and then someone else decides - not the landlord.

It’s on the value of the land, not the size of the land. If you have two plots identical in size and one house is 1000sqm and the other house extends to 1500sqm the lvt will not alter in cost

that is the idea, it’s on the land not the buildings upon it

So a landlord is making a loss on the rental - is he going to keep renting it out?

its not sustainable

i also worry about listed buildings

ultimately I'm not against the idea but it will need a long consultation period and it’s going to have to take stamp duty into account

So someone can build a block of flats with 30 people living in it and using services and they will pay the same as the neighbour who has 5 people living in a 4 bed house and using much less

Council Tax should be scrapped and replaced by an income based tax. It is regressive and corrupt because the least selfish group in society (child free) are hugely subsidising the most selfish who burden the community with children. At present a single pensioner is paying 75% of what a selfish family of four pay. Wrong, wrong, WRONG.

Value of anything is only what someone is willing to pay for it. If no one is willing to pay X for it, it isn't valued at anything. This is a nonsense tax grab.

Shouldn't Burnham propose an idea pr two that might actually benefit the people of the country rather than detailing a tax grab?

I just think the admin behind it before you even get to people appealing etc etc will make this drag on and on

the only thing it will change is that they can fiddle the books by marking it down as future expected tax revenue. Remember their black hole is based on forecasts

You can look this up. When they sell the property will be re-rated, a flag gets put on when planning is granted. Personally I think it should be rerated the minute planning permission is given. Am I still bitter about my neighbours extension? Hell yes.

This. If you think this is here to help you think again.

My point is that I think the incentives are off. The government /those in power talk about increasing tax. But increasing tax all the time does not appear to be increasing overall wealth of the country. We’re all worse off than we were and yet there’s still discussion about increasing tax more.

And yes I’d rather pay higher income tax than council tax/ land tax which doesn’t take into account whether I have the income coming in to suddenly pay more.

Council tax is simple to assess. Also penalises second home owners, though I would prefer no second homes.

Land value tax would do neither. I would prefer local income tax and business taxes based on turnover.

Council tax is already excluded from most rents so I suspect this will be considered the same way. Renters will have to pay it.

I’m sorry, I don’t really understand - isn’t council tax already based on the value of the property? How is land value tax different?

Scotland tried that, it ended badly.
If x is the same for everyone it either is unaffordable for some or doesn’t raise enough to cover the costs of the services council tax is meant to contribute to. If x varies with income it is just another income tax. If x varies with land value then it gets complicated with whether that land value is divided amongst the people in the house or not.
Council tax is not a brilliant system but one of the reasons it hasn’t been changed is because no one has come up with anything else which would work better.
There is so much centralisation of policy and admin that for me keeping this at council level is important.

Nail on the head.

This is how it’s done in Ireland we have a local property tax. If you rent your landlord pays. Mine is less than €500 for the year on a €500k 5bed house. It can also be paid from your pay on a monthly basis through the tax system which is handy.

Valuing land could be done more easily (from a map) and consistently than council tax house bandings. So it has that going for it.

Currently new builds get shafted on council tax bandings - I’m an F, but older houses that are much larger (but same bedrooms, although fewer bathrooms) and larger gardens and worth 50%+ more are an E.

What would happen to single person discounts? If you’re saying the value is the land, irrespective of what’s on it or who lives in it, then there shouldn’t be a discount for a single person occupying a bungalow.

I don’t think it’s right that tenants don’t pay - they’re still using local services (bins, roads, social care, schools) as much as anyone else.

I doubt there’s enough benefit to tax takings to be worth the upheaval and upset. Just update council tax please and remove some anomalies.

Not sure. We are band A and I cant imagine that we would be paying more but who knows.

It wouldn’t be €500, if it’s replacing council tax it would be £5,000 for a good size home/ land (my council tax is currently about £3,500 but it would of course go up otherwise why would they bother changing anything).

Presumably that's because in Westminster, most properties are Band D or above and so most will be paying at least that or more. In other places Band D would be the most expensive properties and the vast majority of people will be paying less than that.

Any tax based upon property value is unfair on renters. The owner should pay.

Another group that will suffer are young families as they are likely ti have high mortgage costs alongside high childcare costs

when I’ve heard it discussed there is always talk of the south paying more to subsidise the north but that seems very sweeping and doesn’t take into account the higher col in the south for example

Ultimately the reason council tax is unpopular is because councils were asked to take on costs previously covered by central government without adequate funding. They need to look at both sides of the equation

It's a stupid idea and will crash the property market.

If there is the money and resource to value every parcel of land in the UK then why not just update house values for council tax. The London issue disparity could be sorted by standardising council tax rates across the capital and making wealthier areas subsidise poorer areas.

I have a fair amount of land. It is worth very little as actual land since it can't ever be built on. It's in the North. It's only worth anything to someone who lives in my house and doesn't mind doing lots of woodland maintenance. Or I guess to someone who just fancies owning a bit of difficult to access woodland that they can't put anything on. It's currently worth about £10k an acre so in total about £100k.

My neighbour has a similar sized plot also worth the same in terms of land.

My house is worth over £2m.
My neighbour's house is worth about £300k

As soon as you start to say "ah but your land is worth more because it has an expensive house on it" you're back to just updating property values for Council tax purposes.