To fight inequality, tax land and not labour
TheTruth1983
Posts: 13,462 Forum Member
✭✭
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-03/to-fight-inequality-tax-land
Article is US centric but it can easily apply here.
So here is a bold idea for a national candidate: Propose a national land value tax. It would highlight the fact that, except for land and housing, capital ratios have not risen here, despite Piketty's rhetoric. It would also be economically efficient and reduce wealth inequality. The revenue could be used to reduce other taxes, or to help close the actuarial deficits in our entitlement programs, or some combination thereof.
Sometimes old ideas are good ideas. Henry George advocated forcefully for a land tax in his 1879 book, "Progress and Poverty." More than 135 years later, perhaps its time is ripe.
Article is US centric but it can easily apply here.
0
Comments
It would result in a more even economy spread throughout the UK instead of having an economy that is centred around London.
If politicians are serious about re-balancing the economy as they claim to be, this is what is needed.
What?
You can see that from the link in your post where the price per square foot rose from $47 to $366 a more than 7 times increase - no investment makes that kind of return in 7 years.
It's a quote from "Animal Farm" by George Orwell.
And the relevance?
There's no such thing as equality
Cream always floats to the top.
Crap sinks to the bottom.
It's the way of nature
From the latest billionaires list by Forbes:
"Forbes said the entrepreneurship is thriving globally and 1,191 members of the list are self-made billionaires, while just 230 inherited their wealth."
Well you will never eradicate it completely but it can be minimised just not by super taxing the incomes of "the rich".
Why would you want to minimise it?
That sounds like we are going to punish success and reward failure
Not sure how you work that out from "tax land, not labour".
Simple Georgism, a person owns the value of what they fairly create but land is a common resource.
Well to my mind that means people who work their weekends for nothing to please their employer must be among the crap that sinks to the bottom.
Somebody on here said they did so recently which points to that person being a failure in life if they sell their labour for nothing...
Too many landowners are asset rich and cash poor.
I think you've misunderstood the meaning Orwell intended to convey
Peter R. Orszag is a Bloomberg View columnist. Now vice chairman of corporate and investment banking and chairman of the financial strategy and solutions group at Citigroup, he was previously director of the Office of Management and Budget
I truly believe he wishes to fight inequality, I really do.
But I also believe the moon is made of Cheddar and that cats can speak English fluently, so maybe my judgement is not the best.
Do you think that Bill Gates succeeded by knocking off at 5 every Friday?
I don't think that you get it at a all
Why would anyone want to fight inequality?
We should embrace inequality
We should encourage human achievement and continue to push it to higher and higher levels.
Athletes do it all the time.
Formula One teams are constantly looking for that extra edge that makes them winners
No-one wants to be"equal"
Mediocrity will be the death knoll for any society that adopts it.
In the UK I think the generally accepted definition of 'inequality' is: unequal because of unfairness
In other words an uneven playing field. the old boys network, charging fees for higher education, etc etc...
It's a word that has gradually ceased to be defined, perhaps that is a mistake.
Of course, perhaps some people use it differently. Communists maybe.
Why not sell some assets then? You can't eat a house.
No worries I'm not interested in the off chance of becoming a millionaire, quality of life is more important.
Working weekends for nothing as you do is not my idea of quality of life, each to their own though i suppose...
Dystopian...
You could sell some of your land, but the buyer will have to pay an annual fine, sorry, a tax, on the land, so why on earth would anyone buy it?
Build on it? I don't know. Land does sell though.
I often do an hour or two extra at weekends and don't get paid a penny extra. I don't do it to please my employer but because it makes my life easier. It's called being salaried - I get paid a fixed amount per year regardless of how many hours I actually work or when I do them. If it's quiet on a Friday afternoon I will knock off early. If I have some reports to catch up on on a Sunday I'll do it. All of the work gets done and I'm happy so what's the problem?
I may not be a billionaire but I'm a long way from being a "failure in life.
Very good, except if you worked all the weekend for nothing on a regular basis as somebody mentioned on here that they do you may feel as though you were being taken for a ...fool...