Buried away in Uncle Vince's speech between the fudge, soundbites and dogwhistling was this:
It will be said that in a world of internationally mobile capital and people it is counterproductive to tax personal income and corporate profit to uncompetitive levels. That is right.
But a progressive alternative is to shift the tax base to property and land which cannot run away and represent, in Britain, an extreme concentration of wealth. I personally regret that mansion tax did not make it into the Coalition Agreement but in a coalition we have to compromise. But we can and should maintain our distinctive and progressive tax policies for the future.
Classy
2 hours ago
12 comments:
"a progressive alternative is to shift the tax base to property and land"
The law of averages says that you cannot always be wrong and lo and behold Stupid Vince proved it. Even if the rest of what he said was total b******.
Even a blind squirrel finds the occasional acorn...
Yes but not administered by him.
A, I think it's more of a case of monkeys with typewriters, but we must be thankful for small mercies.
P, who'se the blind squirrel - Vince or me?
JH, if something's worth doing, it's worth doing badly.
Many thanks for the hat-tip.
It was pretty much taken as read that Uncle Vince had abandoned his land-tax principles and his mansion tax for office.But apparently not: he is still narked about the mansion tax not making the cut and his land taxing propensities are as strong as ever.Or so it would seem.
What is he playing at? Does he want to get the bullet so he can make his name as a martyr?
How far are the Conservatives prepared to go along with this flagrantly anti-Homeownerist rhetoric ? Does he have some Conservative support?
Very perplexing.
(The media have n't even noticed)
DBC, but Martin Weale and Chris Huhne have gone very quiet on that front, and now they're out of power, David Miliband started yapping on about Mansion Tax and Andy Burnham mentioned Land Value Tax.
Who are the bigger hypocrites here - Martin & Chris or David & Andy?
And it's not perplexing at all. The Home-Owner-Ists have mounted a centuries long propaganda campaign and they have their own counter-propaganda units at the ready the minute anybody starts talking sense. Just look at the vitriolic comments that I get on this humble backwater of a blog.
Vince said;
"It will be said that in a world of internationally mobile capital and people it is counterproductive to tax personal income and corporate profit to uncompetitive levels. That is right.
"
He then went on to say;
"But a progressive alternative is to shift the tax base to property and land which cannot run away and represent, in Britain, an extreme concentration of wealth."
Which Mark really seems to like, why?
Vince isn't shying away from punitive levels of taxation, he's suggesting it be levied against land, rather than income.
So, Mark, why is this a good thing?
I see Jon Cruddas was reported in the Mirror as calling for a land tax also.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/09/22/brother-it-s-close-115875-22578850/
TCO, just a few pointers:
1. LVT has no dead weight costs, unlike income tax, VAT etc.
2. Taxes on land values aren't taxes, they are 'user charges'.
3. Adam Smith, Ricardo, Tom Paine, Ed Burke, JS Mill, Henry George & Friedman said so.
4. Land 'ownership' is not wealth creation, it is consumption.
5. The Home-Owner-Ists say 'location, location, location', free market economists say 'Ricardo's Law Of Rent'.
6. Taxation of incomes is theft, land 'ownership; is theft, Make the punishment fit the crime.
7. End to house price and credit bubbles.
8. LVT is easy and cheap to collect, no evasion.
9. 'The state' (as ultimate taxing authority) is synonymous with land 'ownership'.
10. 'In your face' taxes are preferable to 'stealth taxes'.
11. There are another couple of hundred or so, you work it out for yourself.
B: from that article "[Jon Cruddas] called for a land tax, a rise in the dole and a minimum wage of £7.60 for all government staff. He also proposed a national investment bank and pension-fund backing for green firms."
One good idea and four shit ideas does not make a manifesto worth supporting.
Tomorrow's Daily Telegraph has a front-page headline: "Cable turns his guns on homeowners".Wonder what that's all about? (Rhetorical question)
If you want market capitalism, you should vote for Land Value Tax, since it has the fewest ill-effects of any tax on a capitalist economy.
If you want bureaucracy, you should vote for the current taxation system since it needs an army of bureaucrats and snoopers to keep it working even in the current half-baked economy-weakening fashion.
If you want feudalism, you should vote for no taxes whatsoever, since that will lead to land prices so high that the only way anyone will be able to get hold of real estate after a few years will be to inherit it.
Personally I prefer capitalism, leavened by a Citizen's Dividend to protect the vulnerable in society, so LVT for me!
DBC, I have covered.
D, music to my ears.
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