Jock,

"No, the market sets a location's value. It does it all the time at the moment."

No it doesn't.

Look, most people only know the value of their property if they actually come to sell it. OK, actual land will fluctuate in value less than any properties on it but, at the same time, the land also fluactuates in price outwith the land-owner's control.

How much a property is worth is based partially on the value of the land on which it stands, but really on whether it's a nice space, what condition it's in, etc. How much land is worth (under the Georgist system) depends on its location and the services connecting it to the community.

So, we come to the valuation. Do you know precisely how much your home is worth? Do you have an idea to the nearest £10,000? Is it worth more or less than this time last year?

Even the government don't actually know what your land or your property is worth. We are, after all, rather living in fear of the constantly threatened Council Tax re-evaluation. When I owned a flat in Edinburgh, I was in the £40 – £50,000 band (IIRC – it was band D anyway) but I bought the flat for just over £70,000 and sold it, six years later, for an awful lot more than that.

This is not an argument against LVT as such – I am simply pointing out that, whilst the market might actually dictate the price of land, most people do not know that price until they are either buying or selling. Further, the government does not know the price of it either and is unlikely to get it right.

My objection to LVT is more ideological – I severely dislike the idea that the state owns the very land upon which I walk. Oh, and there is nothing to stop a greedy, high-spending government simply raising land rents across the board whenever they run out of money. Sure, that applies to other taxes but there are ways to get around those (and thus demonstrating the truth of the Laffer curve): there is no way to avoid paying rent on the land on which you live.

DK

P.S. Further, land rent bears no relation to the services used. Take a block of flats and a single house occupying the same land area. The block of flats contains two hundred people, the house contains four. They have all of the usual services.

Should the house pay the same rent as the block of flats? If you say "yes", then you are ignoring the fact that it is the cost of services that should determine the rent – after all, two hundred people will throw out considerably more rubbish than four.

If you say "no", then it is no longer a pure land rent. It becomes, in effect, just like the Council Tax (although nearer the Poll Tax): the tax level is determined by the number of people as well as the value of the land.