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Now, you are seriously suggested that Land Value Tax is responsible or even a major contributor to Hong Kong’s wealth. Right, I see. How silly of me.
‘Wealth laying idle’ was at one time income was it not? and taxed as such? was it not? To then attached a causal link to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few is... tenuous.
Hyams may well have not paid tax on Centrepoint until he realised its increase in value. I think that is rather the point of a tax on income is it not? For sure he spent a great deal of money on all the tradesmen needed to build it. **** him.
It’s a stretch but since it occurs to me... much like the Empire State perhaps. All those workers, working away in a depression, getting paid - what a fool Hoover was to create all that wealth
and spread it around a bit! And no doubt there was and is a tax bill down the line.
And how dare you buy land near a railway line, with money taken from your taxes for the benefit of all it serves. Outrageous! You know what? I’m going to build a line next to you so you have to pay me for it! I'll call it the Canada Dock Branch Line and I’ll call the tax Land Value Tax. There. Fixed.
To suggest that Cornwall taxpayers paid more than their share of the nation's infrastructure costs is disingenuous in the extreme. This is how Crossrail is funded:
www.london.gov.uk/crossrail-brs. So as not to bore everyone with the detail and to summarise - those that benefitted from it, paid for it.
If there is no one that can afford to occupy houses in Everton, do you imagine that money will drop from the heavens to relieve current owners of possession and renovate them to make them more expensive and less affordable?
And if taking tax at source is regressive (and it may well be) how does a wealth tax help? The depletion of 'wealth' to pay tax has a long and regrettably regressive history in this country and yes, that would include the landed gentry less able to pay income tax or inheritance tax or invest in wealth creation - and jobs and services. And this is where you 'betray' your socialist leanings.
However, without a market there can be no wealth and no income whether the owner holds it or tries to flog it for threepence. Without a market, it is worth nothing. There is no wealth to tax. When there is income there will be something to tax. Geddit?
Incidentally the empty house owner in Everton does not pay zero tax. If he’s lucky his community charge is discounted. And BTW it’s not economics. It’s fiscal policy.
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