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Old 05-05-2008, 05:56 AM   #21 (permalink)
BonnieDundee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Smidgey View Post
Yes, which was why I made clear that is had problems (in my view any tax will), but I consider it to be the so-called 'least bad'. Furthermore, in a later post in this thread you go on to talk about exceptions - in the society I would envision, such things as staples (food, fuel, etc) would certainly be considered for exemption.
The least bad is clearly the land value tax because that is not a tax of labour at all but one that is already paid to a landlord anyway.


Quote:
By equal access do you mean before or after it has been appropriated? I could never support the after, but the before, sure. However, I think most (all?) of such land in the UK has been appropriated (and certainly not justly in many cases). I don't understand, however, what you mean by this is a tax that is collected anyway.
Well your access doesn't have to be to actual land, the LVT makes up for lack of access. But I just can't see what justification can give perpetual ownership of land, which is not manmade, to anyone. It is absurd and most classical liberals seemed to realise this.


Quote:
Either I am being extremely obtuse or you have explained this poorly.

Could you please rephrase this, since I'm not understanding the sentence structure at all.
The land value tax is a tax on ground rent only. That means the value of unimproved land given to it by nature and society. Therefore the LVT does not actually tax any labour products. It is the only tax to do that and perhaps the word tax is even incorrect in its case. It can be levied several ways. But the most common idea is simply that a charge for the estimated ground rent is made when any income is realised.

This also allows all individual's equal access to land by giving them compensation for it if they don't have access because any value an individual or organisation could realise through simple ownership of unimproved land is taken away and the tax could simply be distributed as a citizen's bonus to those in the local community.

The tax will also lower land values because speculation in unimproved land is basically removed and easier access for businesses and individuals will increase wages and decrease interest rates.

The land value tax, which isn't really a tax at all, if levied not as it is today on consumers and workers for the benefit of landlords, but on those who gain through ground rent is almost a wonder tax.


Quote:
I already made that point. Consumers, the largest block of society, will be hit by any tax no matter its form (except in property tax they will be called property owners, not consumers, and so forth).
The LVT is a collection on ground rent, it is not created by individuals and is in fact being levied mainly on consumers today, if it was collected by the gov't it would actually lessen the burden on society.
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