Land for the Many Report

[Triassic]

9 hours ago, ProDave said:

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.

Isn’t that called Leasehold? Hardly a vote winner, Neither is ‘keep the poor, poor and the rich, rich’!

 

Come to think about it, the trickle down effect didn’t work either. 

 

Edited June 9, 2019 by Triassic

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, JSHarris said:

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.

I feel the same.  When he has been on Radio 4, he seems to be pushing an agenda of some sort, not really sure what though.

I know it is the job of environmentalist, and I include myself in that group, to set a high bar, but it does piss me off when I talk to people in my profession that seem to be fixated on just one or two issues, especially when they think that it will solve all problems.

The use of selective data seems to be worse in the environmental industry than in the medical industry.  It is a shame as no matter how much I point out the misconceptions, it just does not sink in.

 

Edited June 9, 2019 by SteamyTea

[Ed Davies]

2 hours ago, willbish said:

10 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?

 

In the quote given there @JSHarris didn't say he intentionally mislead, just that he failed to check facts so may have mislead either intentionally or otherwise.

 

I too generally agree with the direction of Monbiot's thinking though perhaps sometimes he goes a bit far. I went off him, though, at the time of the climategate “scandal” when he immediately took the out-of-context quotes at there worst possible interpretation and called for Phil Jones and co's sacking. To be fair to him, he did apologise and take it back later when it became clear there was nothing to the whole thing but the damage was largely already done by then and he really should have been a bit more careful in the first place.

 

He also did some moderately silly raging about court cases related to the early shutdown of German nuclear power stations following Fukushima which didn't make sense in the context of previous negotiations between the nuclear industry and the German government regarding the taxation of power stations and their lifetime extensions.

 

So I regard him as interesting source of ideas but not really a reliable source of information.

[eandg]

Won't get a chance to read this until later in the week but land reform (capturing the uplift in land values through the planning system, and public-interest led development) is a relatively big issue in Scotland and the government here established the Scottish Land Commission to develop policy proposals in this area. The SLC, like Labour I'd imagine, realise you can't cut landowners and developers off at the knees and that reforms need to work for everyone - it's about sharing risk and reward rather than the one-way system we have now. A housing market needs the market. 

 

[willbish]

27 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

 

In the quote given there @JSHarris didn't say he intentionally mislead, just that he failed to check facts so may have mislead either intentionally or otherwise.

True, although @JSHarris then went on to say that he had deliberately misled.

Intentionally and deliberately are fine hairs to part.

 

I'm trying to understand why he is considered such an untrustworthy source when his ideas and arguments garner support. 

Edited June 9, 2019 by willbish
Untrustworthy

[Temp]

Just for info.. there are ways to avoid inheritance tax if you plan in advance. As far as I can tell all involve giving up some control over your money. 

 

These days they say that for safety you should not draw more than 4% in income if you don't want to deplete your capital. So let's say you want an income of £20-40k per year. That means ideally you need to keep £500k to £1m under your control not locked away in some avoidance scheme.

 

So in practice anyone with less than say £1million will struggle to find an attractive way to avoid inheritance tax. However anyone with say £10m can afford to give £8-9m to their children or put into trust and still have money to live on. They can also afford the advice and admin fees that these inheritance tax schemes cost. 

[Ferdinand]

9 hours ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

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

 

Without applying it to Monbiot himself, deliberate misleading implies a certain degree of competence to have a clue in the first place - which is often patently not the case.

 

As @AnonymousBosch comments, the choice between ignorant vs manipulative vs stupid is a tricky judgement to make.

 

Edited June 10, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

Incidentally I tweeted pretty much the whole team to ask about what happens when the market value of the property is less than the rebuild cost, which gives a negative value to the piece of land on their example calculation.

 

(Land Rent being the the theoretical rent you pay instead of Council Tax for the site your building stands on. The theory being that there is some sort of cedible process which separates the land value from the building value.) From page 42:

 

 

This is the query:

 

@georgemonbiot, @L__Macfarlane, @guyshrubsole, @beth_stratford, what happens to land rent when the Rebuild Cost is more than the value of the House?

 

No replies so far.

 

eg in the North and Midlands there are significant numbers of properties where this is the case.

 

Ferdinand

"

Edited June 10, 2019 by Ferdinand

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

 

 

 

"

Well knowing rebuild cost is more than build cost, I am near certain  that my land value is £0

 

So my new land tax once council tax is replaced will be £0 then.

 

I will believe that when it happens.

 

That just shows how Londen / SE the thinking is by the authors.

[Ferdinand]

26 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Well knowing rebuild cost is more than build cost, I am near certain  that my land value is £0

 

So my new land tax once council tax is replaced will be £0 then.

 

I will believe that when it happens.

 

That just shows how Londen / SE the thinking is by the authors.

 

I don't know - there may be an answer.

 

It could be that that is a simplistic example , or it could be that there is an intention that in the interim there be a cross-subsidy as housing prices adjust as they see their model  etc.

 

Ferdinand

Edited June 10, 2019 by Ferdinand

[AliG]

I have thought about this issue too.

 

If they jacked up taxes on the rich and property taxes on large houses then the value of my house would drop.

 

As I can show how much I spent building my house, there would be a strong argument that the land was actually worthless.

 

There is also a lack of joined up thinking on various different proposals. It seems that they believe that they can raise income and property taxes on people with higher incomes. Surely you have to look at the total amount of tax being paid and at some point there is a limit, I don't mind paying my fair share to help run the country, I do mind if that share starts to be over 50% of my earnings, currently I basically pay 48% income and NI in Scotland with some dividends at 38% so an average tax rate of around 45-46%. As ever I would start with the people not paying the actual tax they should be for example sports people paid in offshore image rights and BBC employees paid via service companies rather than just blindly raising tax rates. Raising tax rates penalises honest people and encourages them to try to avoid tax whilst benefitting people abusing the system even more.

 

Hence my catch all idea that inheritance tax is offset against the amount of tax someone paid whilst alive. Thus if you paid your taxes then fair enough, nothing more to pay, but if you avoided taxes then it catches up with you in the end.

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

This part of the summary strikes a chord with me ...

 

Quote

All information about land ownership, control, subsidies and planning should be published as open data. There should be free and open access to information on who owns land, including the identities of the beneficial owners.

 

Will that ever be implemented ? Even by a Labour government?

[AliG]

Slightly off topic rant re ever more progressive tax policy.

 

I decided to check actual tax rates people pay including allowances etc, assuming their earnings are taxed as income. The now generous tax free allowance has quite an effect on effective tax rates.

 

The other thing that has a big affect on effective tax rates is that people past retirement age don't pay any NI, even those retired people below the now high retirement age likely make most income from pensions and investments and pay no NI. This seems to me to just be a tax bonus to old voters.

 

Of course you can then go into arguments about taxes paid out of taxed income such as VAT and council tax which is fair enough.

 

Anyway -

 

Gross earnings - effective tax rate - tax rate if retired

 

12000 - 3.4% - 0%

20000 - 14.3% - 7.5%

28000 - 19.4% - 11.1%

40000 - 23.2% - 13.7%

60000 - 27.8% - 19.1%

100000- 33.5% - 27.5%

150000 - 39.6% (There is a big jump as you go over 100k due to losing your tax free allowance)

1000000 - 45.9%

 

So the tax system is already extremely progressive if you are actually paying income tax. It does get less progressive if you include council tax, but this is offset by universal credit and child benefit, actually the tax system is probably somewhat less fair on people with no children.

 

The issue for me is the number of people avoiding doing this, either by claiming to be self employed, something now being cracked down on or by being being retired. As the percentage of the country that is retired increases I suspect something will have to be done about their dramatically lower effective tax rates, of course this is politically unpopular. Statistically retired people are now on average some of the wealthiest in the country, so why do they get a big tax break. Everyone knows that NI is not put in a fund to pay pensions, it is just another form of income tax. How can we justify asking young people to pay ever higher rates of tax, much of it going on care for the elderly who aren't being asked to pay their share. As am I in my 40s this argument doesn't affect me much either way, having spoken to my parents eventually even they admitted it was odd that they don't pay NI.

 

Just out of interest - I have a lot of time on the train - I went to calculate what the effective tax rate for someone with kids on universal credit is.

 

Using an Edinburgh post code, a couple with 2 kids under 5, 1 adult earning 20,000 a year would receive £220 a week in universal credit and £34 a week in child benefit. Thus they have a very negative effective tax rate.

 

In fact they have the same take home pay as a single adult on £36500 a year and a -58% tax rate. Assuming rent and council tax on a 3 bedroom flat of around £1200 a month they would still have around £17000 a year in cash to spend.

Edited June 10, 2019 by AliG

[SteamyTea]

I wish the only tax was on earnings from/in the UK.  Then we would have a much simpler and clearer system.

It would also get rid of a lot of opportunities to avoid paying.

It seems odd to me that some people can claim benefits while working, or not working, while others cannot i.e. me.

But it is OK, Boris is sorting it out for us, he want to reduce tax take for the rich again.

[Jeremy Harris]

@Ed Davies has remembered the article by George Monbiot that caused a debate on the GBF years ago (I've had a quick look and can't find that discussion now, but I think it must have been back around 2011/2012).  I do remember that during that discussion years ago several people (including, I think, @Ed Davies and @SteamyTea) as well as myself started digging around to see if the facts supported some of the claims being made.

 

My view is that George Monbiot is a political activist first, and an environmental activist second.  When he sticks purely to environmental stuff, and isn't trying to push his political agenda, then often he seems to be on the right track.  As I mentioned originally, I agree with many of his opinions, but, as someone who prefers reporting to be accurate and supported by evidence, I find it hard to consider him to be a reliable source. 

 

As to whether he deliberately misleads, I'm inclined to the view that he probably does.  He feels very strongly about his socialist principles (nothing inherently wrong with that) and I believe he lets his political views overrule supporting evidence from time to time.  I strongly suspect that he may agree with this, as he's rowed back from statements he's made in the past when he's been called out.  That, in my view, tends to make him unreliable as a source, although I still read what he writes from time to time.

[AliG]

14 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I wish the only tax was on earnings from/in the UK.  Then we would have a much simpler and clearer system.

It would also get rid of a lot of opportunities to avoid paying.

It seems odd to me that some people can claim benefits while working, or not working, while others cannot i.e. me.

But it is OK, Boris is sorting it out for us, he want to reduce tax take for the rich again.

 

 

The benefits system in the UK is very generous to people with children versus everyone else. I have seen some data where the UK is one of the most generous countries if you have children but one of the least generous otherwise.

 

I also looked at some data recently on US tax progressiveness, the US tax system starts less progressive than other countries, but the big difference comes in benefits. The lack of benefits is shocking compared to here, also the requirement for middle income people to pay for healthcare out of taxed income. This is what gives them one of the least progressive tax systems.

[SteamyTea]

Some years ago I looked at the total tax take of the UK, then worked out the percentage we would have to pay if it was only on income tax.  I think it worked out at around 65% on every single pound we earn.

But goods would be cheaper and we would not have to pay any council tax, road tax, fuel duties etc...

And companies would not be able to avoid corporation tax, as there would not be any.

Edited June 10, 2019 by SteamyTea

[AliG]

So Boris Johnson is suggesting raising the 40% tax threshold. You can debate whether or not this is correct. A lot more people pay 40% tax than used to. I do love that it is called a tax giveaway to high earners, of course it is actually taking less of their money from them. I doubt it is a vote winner anyway.

 

But he has said that this will be financed by increasing employee NICs. So effectively a tax cut for rich pensioners and people living off investments. How stupid is thatm they are already massively favoured in the tax system.

 

I am very suspicious that politicians know an inordinate number of people who own BTLs, live off investments and consider themselves self employed versus people who simply just work hence the lack of fairness in the tax system.

[Temp]

Gove plans to abolish VAT and replace it with a lower sales tax..

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48571291

 

Can't see where it says how he plans to finance that.

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, Temp said:

Can't see where it says how he plans to finance that.

Legalise cocaine and tax it, should bring in a few quid and save prison costs.

[Onoff]

18 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Legalise cocaine and tax it, should bring in a few quid and save prison costs.

 

Presumably, under Boris, nose candy will become a legitimate MP's expense?

[Mr Punter]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

 

Presumably, under Boris, nose candy will become a legitimate MP's expense?

 

Should be dished out like rum rations before PMQs.

[ProDave]

Re taxing the "Rich" more:

 

In Scotland, Higher earners already pay more than in other parts of the UK, as the Scottish have at last started using their tax raising powers, and when England raised the higher tax rate threshold, Scotland did not.

 

Surprise Surprise, the increased tax revenue was less than predicted.  Could that be because it is a disincentive to work harder, and those that can, have "moved" their income to England?

[K78]

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Legalise cocaine and tax it, should bring in a few quid and save prison costs.

 

That is more sensible than most people think. 

 

Why cannabis isn’t legal is beyond me. 

[Jeremy Harris]

8 minutes ago, K78 said:

 

That is more sensible than most people think. 

 

Why cannabis isn’t legal is beyond me. 

 

 

It's beyond me, too. 

 

I saw a report on the BBC earlier by a woman that nearly died from liver failure, because she was in the habit of drinking large quantities of wine every day.  She didn't seem to think she was at fault, and wanted the law changed so that the amount of alcohol in a bottle of wine was clearer (what could be clearer that the ABV that's already on the label I don't really know).

 

The really big problem with having maintained a ban on cannabis for so long is that it's stimulated the development of very strong strains.  If it had been made legal 40 odd years ago I doubt this would have happened, as it could have been regulated and taxed like alcohol and tobacco.