Land for the Many Report

[Ferdinand]

Interesting little document from the "Land Value Tax" people.

 

(Attached)

 

It would have interesting effects on self-build, but I have no idea what they would be.

 

land-for-the-many.pdf

Edited June 9, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Dreadnaught]

One of the authors, Guy Shrubsole, has recently written this book, which is reviewed in the Guardian here. 

 

[recoveringbuilder]

There was an article on countryfile last week about this, a large percentage of land being owned by a small percentage of people and they are able to avoid death duties, can’t remember it in great detail but was an interesting article 

[Jeremy Harris]

George Monbiot seems a bit like the Curate's Egg to me; he has sparks of common sense, let down by a failure to check facts from time to time, which in my view makes him unreliable as a source (I really can't be bothered to do any more fact-checking on stuff he writes).

 

Not sure about dodging inheritance tax, as it's now a year since my mother died and the sale of the farm and associated taxes that are payable is still being dragged out.  As far as I can see there isn't any obvious way to avoid inheritance tax, although there is a means to allow farms to pass on to children to continue to be run, just as there always has been.  I don't see this as being a particularly bad thing, as if children don't want to take on a family run farm then it will be sold to someone who does want to run it.  Not an easy life being a farmer, anyway, and fewer people seem interested in becoming farmers now.

 

It's not easy to bring about just land reform, as has been demonstrated many times in history.  A look at what's been going on in countries that have tried radical land reform shows that, whilst the principle of taking land away from the wealthy, and giving it to the less wealthy, may seem reasonable in the eyes of some, in practice it seems that those who take on such land often fail to work it efficiently.

 

 

 

[oldkettle]

I instinctively don't trust the headlines in the Mail but the summary is quite a chilling reading. What the Labour Socialist government need to do... 

[Thedreamer]

The report touches upon community land ownership in Scotland. This has been very important in the Highlands and Islands to ensure that regeneration and development can occur which then creates job opportunities and improves the local economy.

 

 

[PeterW]

This is where the French agricultural system falls down ... they understand the “land of the people” socialism type farm ownership rules, yet cannot understand that small scale farming cannot be sustainable without excessive subsidies. There are also punitive tax regimes for making the land use more significant, hence the use of co-operatives. 

 

The average farm size in France is something like 57 hectares, the UK is 98 and Spain is just 26. The interesting bit is when you break it down into the numbers of farm units by size, and the French pretty much is within the 2-3 times mean, but the UK has some massive units of 50 and 60 times mean, and this is offset by a significant number of small scale units operating in the 2-5 hectare group, usually classed as hobby farms. 

 

Land ownership will always be an emotive subject however they are not making any more of it ..... and it will continue to rise in value. The way to increase overall ownership is to decentralize and spread the economy over the wider country, but as (all parties other than SNP) Westminster believes that the UK ends at the M25, that is going to take some epic U-Turns in policy. 

 

 

[ProDave]

I have skim read that document and frankly it makes depressing reading.

 

It will result in far fewer private landlords, so they had better damned well hope they really put into place nore social housing building.

 

It will result in taxes on ordinary home owners moving home. They even admitted someone moving home might not even be able to afforrd a new house of the same value. So people won't move home and it will result in an illiquid housing market and more people putting up with a house that is too small because they will be taxed if they dare to move.

 

And the idea of selling the land to a trust and then paying rent for it.  The example quoted leaves the "owner" of the house paying over £500 per month rent for the land forever.  So in that model you had better start putting more into you pensions to keep on paying that land rent long after your mortgage is paid off.

 

Sadly it is what I expect from the present Labour government.  And even more sadly, with the present turmoil in politics, there is a real chance they might get into power and try to implement this.

 

This and other predicted changes mean imho the next labour government might harm the UK economy more than the  B word that we shall not speak of.

 

[Thedreamer]

36 minutes ago, PeterW said:

This is where the French agricultural system falls down ... they understand the “land of the people” socialism type farm ownership rules, yet cannot understand that small scale farming cannot be sustainable without excessive subsidies. There are also punitive tax regimes for making the land use more significant, hence the use of co-operatives. 

 

The average farm size in France is something like 57 hectares, the UK is 98 and Spain is just 26. The interesting bit is when you break it down into the numbers of farm units by size, and the French pretty much is within the 2-3 times mean, but the UK has some massive units of 50 and 60 times mean, and this is offset by a significant number of small scale units operating in the 2-5 hectare group, usually classed as hobby farms. 

 

Land ownership will always be an emotive subject however they are not making any more of it ..... and it will continue to rise in value. The way to increase overall ownership is to decentralize and spread the economy over the wider country, but as (all parties other than SNP) Westminster believes that the UK ends at the M25, that is going to take some epic U-Turns in policy. 

 

 

 

In our area, community land ownership with the exception of managing estate assets is less focused upon agricultural and more on large projects like harbour development, wind turbines etc. Both UK and Foreign land owners often have no interest in improving the vast areas of land in the Highland and Islands, but communities have the ability to do this, by accessing grant funding, raising fund through the community which then allows projects such a hydro or wind turbine to go ahead. These projects then allow funds to be distributed back to the community to help individuals with the costs of completing training or start up grants for small new businesses. 

 

Yes this an emotive subject but who has more rights over land, a community that have members who have lived there for generations or a foreign sheikh or billionaire tycoon?

 

[PeterW]

1 hour ago, Thedreamer said:

 

Yes this an emotive subject but who has more rights over land, a community that have members who have lived there for generations or a foreign sheikh or billionaire tycoon?

 

I agree - the issue we have is a London-centric governance structure that hasn’t actually cottoned on to spending £50Bn on HS2 would be better spent on 50 new garden towns or cities with good rail links, a commerce structure and a set of schools. If you built 25% as social housing, 25% was self build and the remaining 50% was developer sheds, then you could not only revitalize a community, you could build one from scratch ...

 

 

[AliG]

I had a bit of a read.

 

It starts of with some interesting and sensible suggestions re the ownership of property, but then descends into increasingly socialist ideas where ever increasing amounts of power are given over to government agencies, something which seems to be labour policy in most areas despite never ending evidence that this does not work.

 

Actually the changes already made to the tax relief on BTL have somewhat reduced its attractiveness and further could be done. I think a lot of BTLs are now owned in corporate structures which continues to confer tax benefits not available to owner occupiers. Only on Friday night my wife's hairdresser, hardly a billionaire investor, was talking about buying a place to rent out, it is incredible how attractive this continues to be to people. As ever larger deposits are required for mortgages, rental property has taken up the slack and this issue needs to be fixed.

 

The notion that you can force down valuation multiples is bizarre though, multiples rise with lower interest rates and people will often try to maximise their borrowing to get the most property they can buy. People will always try to work around this.

 

In London a lot of buyers are cash buyers and thus don't care about valuation multiples. Many of these are foreign investors looking for a safe store of cash. Doing something about this would help, particularly making sure it is not money laundering. The hoops I have to go through to do anything compared to the apparent ease of people whose money seems to come from dubious sources of buying property is very strange.

 

Basically we could tighten up loopholes and run the current system more sensibly without upending the whole system. The same could apply to the whole tax system such as the avoidance of employers NICs by the self employed, the lower rates of tax on dividends and CGT and tax relief on payments to charities. Every time someone creates little special case or loophole it gets exploited and costs everyone money.

[ProDave]

Don't forget the capital gain tax rules on letting a former main residence are already being tightened next April, with Letting relief gone, and primary residence relief limited to just 9 months after you more out.

 

It is looking increasingly likely that I might face some level of CGT when our old house eventually sells, and it fills me with dread that if the present tenant does not end up buying it, I will have to evict them and put it back on the open market, and then be taxed  for that heinous crime of owning an empty property, when all I have wanted for the last 5 years is to sell the damned thing.

[willbish]

7 hours ago, JSHarris said:

George Monbiot seems a bit like the Curate's Egg to me; he has sparks of common sense, let down by a failure to check facts from time to time, which in my view makes him unreliable as a source (I really can't be bothered to do any more fact-checking on stuff he writes).

 

Can you cite some examples where Monbiot has intentionally misled? I've been reading his articles and books for a while and always found them very well referenced. Of course his subject matter is often controversial and therefore some people seem intent on finding errors within his work in the hope of discrediting his ideas. In general I think his work is very accurate.

[Jeremy Harris]

11 minutes ago, willbish said:

 

Can you cite some examples where Monbiot has intentionally misled? I've been reading his articles and books for a while and always found them very well referenced. Of course his subject matter is often controversial and therefore some people seem intent on finding errors within his work in the hope of discrediting his ideas. In general I think his work is very accurate.

 

The last time I went looking for peer reviewed evidence of something he'd written was about climate change and the use of biomass as fuel.  IIRC, there was a debate on the GBF about the specific article, probably around 5 or 6 years ago (before the nutter that runs the GBF threw me off because he's a wood burning stove fanatic and animal rights extremist, whose wife then spammed me with extreme animal rights stuff for weeks).

 

Whatever may be left on the GBF will have been edited by the site owner, as he has a penchant for editing posts that he personally disagrees with, something one or two of us spotted and called him out on.

[willbish]

1 minute ago, JSHarris said:

 

The last time I went looking for peer reviewed evidence of something he'd written was about climate change and the use of biomass as fuel.  IIRC, there was a debate on the GBF about the specific article, probably around 5 or 6 years ago (before the nutter that runs the GBF threw me off because he's a wood burning stove fanatic and animal rights extremist, whose wife then spammed me with extreme animal rights stuff for weeks).

 

Whatever may be left on the GBF will have been edited by the site owner, as he has a penchant for editing posts that he personally disagrees with, something one or two of us spotted and called him out on.

 

Ok, so nothing in Monbiot's recent books or articles that you know to be factually misleading?

[Jeremy Harris]

4 minutes ago, willbish said:

 

Ok, so nothing in Monbiot's recent books or articles that you know to be factually misleading?

 

I've no idea.  Once I'd found that he'd been very economical with the truth when trying to support a particular view I decided he was untrustworthy as a source, so I've just not bothered to take any notice of anything he's written.  If he could deliberate mislead once, then in my view there is a good chance that he may mislead again.  After all, he makes a living from selling stories to those who agree with his political views (which isn't to say that I don't, but I prefer facts over unsupported rhetoric)

[willbish]

1 minute ago, JSHarris said:

 

I've no idea.  Once I'd found that he'd been very economical with the truth when trying to support a particular view I decided he was untrustworthy as a source, so I've just not bothered to take any notice of anything he's written.  If he could deliberate mislead once, then in my view there is a good chance that he may mislead again.  After all, he makes a living from selling stories to those who agree with his political views (which isn't to say that I don't, but I prefer facts over unsupported rhetoric)

Sorry to push, but where exactly did he deliberately mislead his readers?

[ToughButterCup]

6 minutes ago, willbish said:

Sorry to push, but where exactly did he deliberately mislead his readers?

 

Impossible to impute motive ... I suspect the adverb was used accidentally. ?

[willbish]

1 minute ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

Impossible to impute motive ... I suspect the adverb was used accidentally. ?

Haha sure, I was using @JSHarris term...

 

14 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

If he could deliberate mislead once,

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

Nested errors.... 

[Jeremy Harris]

1 hour ago, willbish said:

Sorry to push, but where exactly did he deliberately mislead his readers?

 

 

Simple.  He quoted "facts" that turned out not to be facts at all, and which didn't stand up to detailed  scrutiny.  The pity is that I agree with his general opinions.  The bottom line is that he now seems to seek out "evidence" selectively, and often only publishes that which supports his own views, and often fails to provide balance.  As a reporter I expect more from him, as he now seems to come across as a political activist than a journalist.  Perhaps this is just the way the media works now, which is a pity, as the Guardian, despite the emphasis it puts on being an independently funded source of information, has suffered (IMHO) as a consequence of a reduction in the robustness and balance with which it reports stories.  Twenty years ago I'd have said that the only significant issue with the reporting in the Guardian was it's notoriously poor spelling, but it seems to be following the lead of every other newspaper, in that it's become a self-licking lollipop, that only publishes stories that it's established readers accept without question.

[willbish]

Jeremy you haven't demonstrated where/when he has been misleading.

 

It just seems a little strong to call someone an 'unreliable source' and 'deliberately misleading' without referring to specific occasions.

[Jeremy Harris]

1 minute ago, willbish said:

Jeremy you haven't demonstrated where/when he has been misleading.

 

It just seems a little strong to call someone an 'unreliable source' and 'deliberately misleading' without referring to specific occasions.

 

 

Given that it's only my view of the man, and that the article in question was written about 5 or 6 years ago, I fail to see why I'm under any obligation to spend a few hours going back over research I did back then.  My view was set when I found that he'd been economical with the truth, and that's not going to change.  Your views are your own, I don't expect you to justify or explain them, any more than you should expect me to spend hours going back over some inconsequential stuff written by a journalist I now consider to be unreliable.  The pity is that I both admired Monbiot and shared many of his views, right up until I was pushed to cross check some stuff he'd written by a couple of sceptics.

[Onoff]

10 hours ago, Christine Walker said:

and they are able to avoid death duties

 

Wasn't there something if they open their estates to the public for a couple of days a year they can avoid iht or something?

[willbish]

10 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

 

Given that it's only my view of the man, and that the article in question was written about 5 or 6 years ago, I fail to see why I'm under any obligation to spend a few hours going back over research I did back then.  My view was set when I found that he'd been economical with the truth, and that's not going to change.  Your views are your own, I don't expect you to justify or explain them, any more than you should expect me to spend hours going back over some inconsequential stuff written by a journalist I now consider to be unreliable.  The pity is that I both admired Monbiot and shared many of his views, right up until I was pushed to cross check some stuff he'd written by a couple of sceptics.

 

You are certainly under no obligation but if you remember it that well it wouldn't hurt to back up some quite strong opinions made publicly with a bit of evidence.

 

I'm sure you are not wrong in finding an error in his work, we all make mistakes.