ConservativeHome's Platform: Mark Wadsworth: Time to look at Land Value Tax? (LVTFan's Blog)

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Pages I refer to often

Income Distribution in the US
How is our income distributed? Well, it is pretty concentrated. How concentrated? Take a look.
Progress and Poverty, by Henry George
Here are links to online editions of George's landmark book, Progress & Poverty, including audio and a number of abridgments -- the shortest is 30 words! I commend this book to your attention, if you are concerned about economic justice, poverty, sprawl, energy use, pollution, wages, housing affordability. Its observations will change how you approach all these problems. A mind-opening experience!
Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: Bottom 90%, Next 9% and Top 1%
Aggregated data by net worth quantile, for various kinds of wealth. With calculations you won't find anywhere else!
Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: 50-40-5-4-1
These tables show how concentrated the ownership of various kinds of assets are. With calculations you won't find anywhere else! This version is less aggregated: Bottom 50%, Next 40%, Next 5%, Next 4% and Top 1%.

Books I Value

Henry George: Progress and Poverty: An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth ... The Remedy
This is perhaps the most important book ever written on the subjects of poverty, political economy, how we might live together in a society dedicated to the ideals Americans claim to believe are self-evident. It will provide you new lenses through which to view many of our most serious problems and how we might go about solving them: poverty, sprawl, long commutes, despoilation of the environment, housing affordability, wealth concentration, income concentration, concentration of power, low wages, etc. Read it online, or in hardcopy.
Bob Drake's abridgement of Henry George's original: Progress and Poverty: Why There Are Recessions and Poverty Amid Plenty -- And What To Do About It!
This is a very readable thought-by-thought updating of Henry George's longer book, written in the language of a newsweekly. A fine way to get to know Henry George's ideas. Available online at progressandpoverty.org and http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

Where Else Might You Look?

Wealth and Want
The URL comes from the subtitle to Progress & Poverty -- and the goal is widely shared prosperity in the 21st century. How do we get there from here? A roadmap and a reference source.
Reforming the Property Tax for the Common Good
I'm a tax reform activist who seeks to promote fairness and reduce poverty. Let's start with the enabling legislation and state requirements for the property tax. There are opportunities for great good!
A blog about Stamford, Connecticut, and its opportunities for progress and prosperity for all
Bringing it home to one medium-sized city's day to day issues and opportunities
LVTFan's blog: Connecting the dots between our most serious problems and what I've come to believe is the solution we need to embrace.
I'm a tax reform activist who seeks to promote fairness and reduce poverty in America. Land Value Taxation seems to me to be our very best hope for these goals, and for reducing urban sprawl and its concomitants.

Sites I enjoy

CityEconomist: City Economic and Financial News and Analysis
Dr. Gavin R. Putland
Land Rent will save the world
Land Value Tax | Jock's Place
Mark Wadsworth's blog
Mason Gaffney's website
Progress and Poverty: why there are recessions and poverty amid plenty -- and what to do about it! by Henry George
This is Bob Drake's excellent 2006 abridgment of Henry George's landmark book, Progress and Poverty. Its language and tone are very accessible. You can read it online or order hardcopy. And Bob's reading of it is available at http://www.hgchicago.org/audio
Saving Communities
Taxpayer: a more or less Henry George view of things
The Distributist Review

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March 19, 2008

ConservativeHome's Platform: Mark Wadsworth: Time to look at Land Value Tax?

Link: ConservativeHome's Platform: Mark Wadsworth: Time to look at Land Value Tax?.
I commend this discussion to your attention!

Mark writes,

The total value of all privately-owned residential property is currently around £4,000 billion, of which three-sevenths relates purely to land/location values, i.e. £1,700 billion. If and when house prices fall to their long run average of five times disposable household income, then land/location values will fall by two-thirds to £570 billion.

This would be exactly the right time to introduce LVT - the fiscally neutral rate required to replace all existing taxes on residential property in their entirety (see list above) would be about 6% per annum on site-only land/location values. The tax would act like an extra interest rate, so in future, price rises would be dampened and values/prices would be kept low and stable. There would be no windfall gains to land- and home-owners, but just as importantly, there would be no risk of land- and home-owners suffering ‘windfall losses’ – what doesn’t go up can’t come down.

And I particularly appreciate his disclaimer:

10. Disclaimer

I have made a small fortune in property over the last ten years precisely because the government did not have the moral courage to introduce LVT back in 1997. Unless the next government has the nerve to follow my advice, I have every intention of making a large fortune over the next cycle, so from a personal point of view, LVT would deprive me of a large pile of money.

Posted on March 19, 2008 at 02:16 PM in better cities, economic rent, Henry George, housing affordability, land appreciates buildings depreciate, land share of real estate value, land value taxation, landed gentry, landlordism, privilege, property tax is two taxes, property tax reform, tax reform, urban land value | Permalink

Tags: land value taxation

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Thanks for the link, LVTFan.

It is very difficult explaining LVT, so my new strategy is to call it "Property Bubble Tax" - the mechanics are pretty much as outlined in the Conservative Home article you linked to, but on Day One (at the botom of the next property price cycle) all existing property taxes are scrapped (hurray!) and from there on, any increase in value each year (over and above the original value at the bottom of the market) is taxed at the highest rate you can think of.

Posted by: Mark Wadsworth | April 25, 2008 at 04:58 AM

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LVTFan's Blog

Land Value Taxation will solve many of the 21st century's most serious social, economic and environmental problems, and promote justice, fairness and sustainability. We CAN have a world in which all can prosper.

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