Tony is wrong, though right in this instance.

Wed Aug 31 21:45:20 BST 2005

The theory of land tax is very complicated and it is naive for Tony to brand
it as slavery. Tony, have you ever read Progress and Poverty?

However, if a tax is going to be applied to individuals at the point when
they apply for planning permission, then in this instance Tony will be
right, it will be a way of drawing people into the financial nexus.

If self-builders have to pay a significant percentage of the development
land value if they suceed in getting permission on otherwise unallocated
land, then it will turn an affordable house into an unaffordable one.

However this would not be a land tax but a development tax. What is being
taxed is not the value of the land, which is by comparison negligible, but
the value of the devlopment rights.

Cheers

Simon

> From: TLIO News <news at tlio.org.uk>
> Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 11:35:12 +0100
> To: diggers350 at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [diggers350] Land tax: the most dreadful scheme since Domesday
> 
> Land Tax is slavery. It welds all landholders, including peasants, to a
> financial system which gradually devours their labour. It's like putting
> VAT on children's clothes or bread, the meanest act taxing what we all need
> to survive.
> Its also a method of taking land off individuals and putting it into the
> hands of the profit-making industrial agriculture and forestry businesses.
> Land Tax will force all landowners to produce the maximum from their land
> to pay the tax, turning the earth into nothing more than the factory floor
> of global capitalism. It assumes all land to be held from the state not to
> us as individuals. And forcing housebuilders to increase building density
> even further, just as in Hong Kong where land tax was trialed.
> Land tax, just like rent or fuel prices, will be intrioduced to the public
> at a low rate, being jacked up to a higher rate as it becomes more accepted.
> Make no mistake, this is a major move toward our enslavement by the Money
> Masters of the Ruling Class.
> 
> As Gerrard Winstanley the Digger said, in 'The Law of Freedom'.
> 'Money must not any longer be the great god that hedges in some and hedges
> out others.'
> 'You have taken the people's money in taxes and free quarter whereby they
> are made worse able to live than before the war.'
> 'The word of God is love, and when all thy actions are done in love to the
> whole creation thou advances freedom, and freedom is Christ in you and
> Christ among you.' 'Bondage is Satan in you and Satan among you.'
> 'Everyone talks of freedom but there are few that act for freedom. The
> actors for freedom are oppressed by the talkers and verbal professors of
> freedom.'
> 'The common people who have cast out the oppressor by their representatives
> have not authorised any yet to give away their freedom.'
> 'Therefore England beware, William the Conqueror's army begins to gather
> into head again and the old Norman prerogative law is the place of their
> meeting, though their chief captain, Charles, be gone, yet his colonels,
> lords of manors, his councillors and divines, which are our lawyers and
> priests, his inferior officers and soldiers, which are the freeholders and
> landlords, all did steal away our land from us when they killed and
> murdered our fathers in that Norman conquest.'
> 
> Also,
> Seems to me to be a convenient way of keeping house prices artificially
> high staving off the crash.
> I'm not interested in stopping debate about Land Tax but please, don't
> believe the hype.
> 
> Tony Gosling
> 
> At 09:34 PM 8/30/05, you wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>> 
>> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article308976.ece
>> 
>> Land tax will target housebuilders' profits
>> 
>> By Andrew Grice, Political Editor
>> The Independent, 30 August 2005
>> 
>> 
>> The Government is to bring in a "housing land tax" to share some of the huge
>> windfall gains that are made when land is sold off for housebuilding.
>> 
>> The move, which may raise hundreds of millions of pounds, could be announced
>> by Gordon Brown in his pre-Budget report in November. A consultation exercise
>> would follow before a final decision on the level of the new tax is taken.
>> Individuals as well as developers could be hit by the tax, which would be
>> paid at the moment when planning permission is granted for housing. In an
>> attempt to stave off criticism that the plan would encourage building in the
>> green belt, there could be a lower rate of tax for land in brownfield sites.
>> 
>> Although the proposal could be controversial, the money raised would not be
>> retained by the Treasury but would be ploughed back into plans to revive
>> local communities by providing housing and improving services. Part of the
>> receipts could be earmarked for local authorities.
>> 
>> Planning approval for homes to be built can vastly increase the value of
>> land.
>> A study for the Government found that the value of farmland in the South-east
>> would increase from £9,122 to £2.7m per hectare when it could be used for
>> housing. In the North-east, the value would rise from £7,534 to £1.2m and in
>> the east Midlands from £7,450 to £1.8m.
>> 
>> The idea of imposing a tax on a landowner when planning permission is granted
>> was first mooted by Kate Barker, a member of the Bank of England's Monetary
>> Policy Committee, in a review of Britain's housing needs in March last year.
>> It has now won the support of Mr Brown and John Prescott, the Deputy Prime
>> Minister, who is responsible for housing and planning.
>> 
>> While ministers would normally be wary of imposing a new, highly visible tax,
>> they believe that the proposal can be justified on the grounds that part of
>> the big windfalls now being enjoyed by the private sector should be used to
>> finance the public services that new housing developments will need.
>> 
>> Land is already subject to capital gains tax. Ms Barker argued in her
>> report
>> that the forms of development gains tax that had been tried in the past had
>> failed because they distorted behaviour and raised less money than expected.
>> Large landowners and speculators managed to avoid the tax but smaller
>> landowners were hit.
>> 
>> She said the proposed tax would have to be accompanied by transitional
>> measures to soften the blow for developers, with land sales contracts drawn
>> up before it was introduced and for those holding large amounts of land for
>> which planning permission has not yet been given.
>> 
>> But the plan will be opposed by the Tories, who warn that it would provide an
>> incentive for developers to build expensive executive homes in the green
>> belt.
>> 
>> Yesterday, the Tories accused Mr Prescott of breaking a pledge that a
>> revaluation of business rates would not raise any extra revenue after figures
>> showed companies were paying an extra £1.2bn a year in England.
>> 
>> Caroline Spelman, the shadow Local Government Secretary, said: " Business
>> rates, like council tax, are being used as a stealth tax.
>> 
>> "Thanks to John Prescott's rigged rates revaluation, local firms are being
>> taxed to the hilt, taking the average bill to £10,000 for the first time."
>> She warned that householders would be hit when a revaluation of council tax
>> took place.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> - --
>> 
>> 
>> "We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
>> nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
>> for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
>> that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
>> righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
>> God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
>> (Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')
>> 
>> Paul's new book, "Energy Beyond Oil", is out now!
>> For details see http://www.fraw.org.uk/ebo/book.html
>> 
>> Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
>> 3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
>> tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864
>> email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
>> website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/index.html
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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>> 
>> iD8DBQFDFMLpwRj1MJJ12hcRAj2hAKDHr86R2svn2RTM7YGlamdCIRxEgACeMu2S
>> 8ZFUmsec3vEg4ExGSTJaZb8=
>> =rQls
>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Diggers350 - an e-mail discussion/information-share list for campaigners
>> involved with THE LAND IS OURS landrights network (based in the UK ..web
>> ref. www.thelandisours.org). The list was originally concerned with the
>> 350th anniversary of The Diggers (& still is concerned with their
>> history). The Diggers appeared at the end of the English Civil war with a
>> mission to make the earth 'a common treasury for all'. In the spring of
>> 1999 there were celebrations to remember the Diggers vision and their
>> contribution. Find out more about the Diggers and see illustrations at:
>> http://www.bilderberg.org/diggers.htm
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 
> Diggers350 - an e-mail discussion/information-share list for campaigners
> involved with THE LAND IS OURS landrights network (based in the UK ..web ref.
> www.thelandisours.org). The list was originally concerned with the 350th
> anniversary of The Diggers (& still is concerned with their history). The
> Diggers appeared at the end of the English Civil war with a mission to make
> the earth 'a common treasury for all'. In the spring of 1999 there were
> celebrations to remember the Diggers vision and their contribution. Find out
> more about the Diggers and see illustrations at:
> http://www.bilderberg.org/diggers.htm
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 