Land tax? - New Labour candidate manifesto pledge

[Kentish Man]

I listened to the BBC World at One today and Andy Burnham, Labour leader hopeful was discussing his new manifesto for a fairer Britain.

One thing that came up was a land tax which Martha Kearney, the presenter, posed would impact pensioners with big gardens, but who do not necessarily have the big income to go with it to pay any of the proposed taxes. This led me to wonder how woodland owners would be treated if such a pledge became a reality further down the line...

Just thought I'd throw that spanner into discussion!

[woodbodger]

Oh thank you for cheering me up on this miserable day! Thinking about it farmers would need to be exempt otherwise they would have to sell their 4x4's. So the thing will be to register your woods as an agricultural holding which I have just done, worry over sleep again tonight.

[cstocks]

Most small woodland owners wouldn't have much to worry about - woodland has a low value, so the tax would be low, too.

The Green Party's economics group has long held the view that LVT makes good sense, in part because it gives landowners (in a small, densely populated island) an incentive to use their land productively. Rather than, for instance, owning "land banks"and not developing them until prices reach an "appropriate" level.

We already have property related taxes (it used to be the rates, now it's Council Tax); LVT is just another alternative.

[wrekin]

In Australia I think the LVT is 1% of the market value of all land, per year. So that's £300 per year on a £30,000 amenity wood of a few acres.

Andy Burnham's pitch is a return to a more traditional Labour position, and I suspect that involves viewing farm owners as class enemies - so I doubt there would be any safeguards for rural land.

[wood troll]

I have not read the Labour policy but if memory serves me correctly the Lib Dems have been advocating this change for years. It would not surprise me if Labour adopted the new tax but failed to remove the old system it replaced thereby increasing the tax burden again.

The policy ( as cstocks says) is to increase land usage and stop speculative holding of land. Another area which would be affected is that of out-of-town supermarkets on cheap land with huge car parks. It would give a huge boost to town centre shops as they would have less of a tax burden due the small size of their plots.

The thing is though that vested interests have set up the present system and that is how they would like to keep it.