Randomly Selected Article or Link

Following hard on the heels of Chief Constable Fahy, the head of Oxfordshire area's police, Chief Superinendant Shaun Morley, demonstrates what I have come to expect from Oxfordshire's top policemen, a more generally liberal attitude whilst being mindful of the harm some people are inflicting on others and their communities with their irresponsible actions and attitudes.

He clearly talks sense, and from experience. It is utter nonsense to increase the age at which people may buy or consume alcohol. It's arbitrary and unfair to those who are able to enjoy a drink responsibly:

"I am not especially convinced that the answer is to raise the minimum age for drinking alcohol and in general I'm in favour of less regulation, and better self- management."

But the story highlights a few areas where improvements could be made:

Earlier this month, police also revealed one in ten licenced premises in Oxford sold alcohol to underage teenagers in a undercover operation.

I also read this week I think, but can't find it now, that there were a tiny number of operators losing their licenses for such things. 68 in a year in England was the figure that sticks in my mind. Perhaps if we got closer to a zero tolerance approach on sales of alcohol to under-18s people would be more circumspect about who they sell to - none of this namby-pamby fining and so on - let's go for license revocation first time out and so on.

Also, there needs to be a two-way discussion here - on-license holders need to be more responsible about not selling to people who are already too drunk. Many's a time here at halls when after closing time I have found people asleep or comatose in the middle of the road who should probably not have been sold another drink several hours previously. That said, I can't get too sanctimonious, as I for one have certainly had too much on occasion. Though I never get violent, drunk or not - I might start jibbering more than usual and then fall asleep midway through a sentence!

Also, dear to my heart, he singles out students:

"We certainly need a significant change in attitudes to alcohol, especially in the 18 to 24 age group, including students where wholly inappropriate behaviour fuelled by excess alcohol consumption is seen as acceptable by many of that peer group.

I have this pet theory that for "normal" local residents, one of the problems is the demise of the "local" in favour of an array of drinking sheds in city and town centres. Of course these came about as a way of making the throughput of alcohol sales more efficient for the brewers. But what they mean is that particularly for young people, they no longer learn to drink in the relatively safe surroundings of a local pub in a village or estate, where they have the friendly eye of a landlord who hopes and expects to see them again soon, and neighbours, friends and family who can take them to one side and point out when they are becoming a nuisance or worse. If that is true for people with their roots in a particular city it is even more of a challenge for our student residents.

Here at Brookes we are just about to initiate a discussion internally about enhancing the role of wardens in halls of residence such as myself, and I will be bringing this up as part of that. A couple of years ago many were scathing about the comments of the Vice-Chancellor at Brunel suggesting that universities had a parental type duty to teach social skills and personal responsibility to their students and, I have to say that over the past couple of years in particular when license times have been extended in Oxford and people roll into halls leery and noisy at all hours, I am beginning to agree.

I'm not a confrontational person so it would be a challenge to me to face up to some of the drunks that tear about the place after closing time, but I think we probably have to face up to doing that. We have a university disciplinary charge of "bringing the university into disrepute" which I suspect could be used here.

When I was done for driving under the influence fifteen years ago the police had to deliver me home to ensure that someone recognized me at the address I had given them. I wonder if the same applies to people who are arrested for alcohol related offenses in town? If so, perhaps wardens and college authorities should be the ones asked to vouch for such people when they are delivered back to university accommodations. If we had that heads up we could take action to show them that the university does not approve of our students bringing the university into disrepute by their actions out on the town at night.

Well, who'd have guessed it, the Liberal Democrats could now be in the position of being the only mainstream political party to go into the next election promising a lower tax burden and radical tax cutting measures for most. In today's speech Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne promises tax simplification: but refuses to promise tax cuts.

I wrote that a couple of days ago and and have been holding off writing more for 48 hours or so since I thought that with the Tax Commission meeting next Tuesday it would not be helpful, but today, says The Observer in "Lib Dems plan 2p cut in Income Tax" people are clearly briefing as if the Tax Commission report is done and dusted and only awaiting some formal endorsement from Conference so it seems open season.

There's not one mention in that article about the proposed Progressive Property Tax. So I assume that "the leadership" has decided either that it's best not mentioned or it's not going to appear in the final options. This was proposed as a first step towards shifting tax onto land values and off incomes. And I do hope we get to see the Tax Commission report before my membership renewal, because if there is no move in that direction it's so much easier not to renew than to have to write in and resign!

Here's what ALTER, of which I am secretary, says about the possibilities of a phasing in of Land Value Tax via a Progressive Property Tax:

In this article by a brand new member of ALTER, David Cooper points out that:-

&#8226; the richest 5% own 40% of real estate - &#163;1.2 trillion - but mainly pay <0.005% of it in council tax, but

&#8226; we make businesses pay 4% of the value of the property they occupy in rates and

&#8226; many poor wage-earning households pay >5% of their property value in CT

A 5% Progressive Property Tax (PPT) with &#163;0.5 million tax-free allowance per taxpayer (exceedingly generous!) could raise &#163;30 bn/yr -as much as 10% of income tax revenue plus all the income tax paid by people below National Minimum Wage.

How can that possibly be other than a massive vote-winner? We would not touch the middle-classes, who would gain on balance even taking into account the increase in Income Tax from Local Income Tax.

I can just see the campaign cry:

We would scrap Council Tax, replace it with a fairer local tax based on ability to pay - and by ensuring the wealthiest pay most of all we would also scrap Inheritance Tax, lift millions out of income tax and reduce the basic income tax rate for almost everyone.



When Party Conference passed the "Moving Ahead" mid-term manifesto in 1998 with the "Tax Shift" statement that has been quoted before here, the stated aim of the Shift was

taking millions of low earning income taxpayers out of paying income tax altogether.

If we merely set PPT at 1%, we will only be able to scrap IHT and have a pretty poor excuse for not taking those "millions of low earning taxpayers" out of income tax:

We thought it unfair to tax the richest 5% as much as the poorest 5% used to pay from their property wealth under Council Tax

And that, dear reader, is just the start. Once the precedent of taxing land values is established and becomes the main base for taxation - as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Milton Friedman et al tell us they would prefer, there are all sorts of savings to be made. So instead of just being able to look at managed government expenditure, such as the health service running costs, in which efficiencies could make a few billion difference, we start to make an impact on the two fifths of government spending - approaching &#163;200bn now, that is just moving money around the country.

Why should the government move money around the country if what is known as "tax competition" does that for us by producing tax incentives for people and businesses to recolonise those areas that have become economically depressed with low land values and therefore low taxes? Think of Hull as the St Hellier of the north, rather than the H*ll-hole of the north...:)

Land Value Tax, replacing Income Taxes, Corporation Taxes, Capital Taxes, transaction taxes and nearly every other economically distortionary tax that does not itself achieve some stated behavioural aim such as taxing tobacco to stop lung cancer or fuel to stop us choking ourselves, is the best opportunity since 1909 when Lloyd-George first tried it. This was the measure in the Peoples' Budget that led to the Lords rejecting it and the eventual re-election of the government and emasculation of the powers of the lords in the Parliament Act of 1911. Ask yourself why. Why on earth would the vested interests of the landed and powerful give up most of their birthright to rule to avoid a tax? Because it's progressive, that's why.

Income tax funding government expenditures, especially on infrastructure and supply side measures really involves a massive shift of money from me and the millions like me, to those who happen to own land in the right place to reap the benefits of that particular infrastructure. Land Value Tax ushers in an economy in which the government can in fact spend new money (not debt) into existence on the "full faith and credit" of the people of these islands, and simply recoup as much of that expenditure as is necessary to avoid economic instability from those whose asset wealth gains as a result of that expenditure.

To me, there are no half measures here. Any tax policy that makes a step in that direction must be rooted in the philosophy that taxes that put people off working and earning are economically destructive and should eventually disappear. If we don't use the opportunity of the Tax Commission to do start this process, we will all lose.

Technorati Tags: land value tax, lib dems, localism, taxation

People may be aware that the Lib Dems' Tax and Economic Reform group ALTER have been campaigning against the Kate Barker proposal for taxing the gains made on grant of planning permission, which is likely to be brought forward in this year's Finance Bill alongside the Labour Land Campaign. Though we recently discovered that despite their new found enthusiasm for real Land Value Tax, the influential (amongst Labour types anyway) IPPR think tank was supporting it.

So on the Adam Smith Institute Blog today they come out against it, sensibly, though of course from the perspective of the property development industry who largely don't like the idea of any tax on anything they might see as gain for them:

Development Tax Disaster?

By Mischa Balen in: Development •

At the ASI we have promoted the use of simple and efficient tax systems, so it is with some interest that we have watched the messy new development land tax proposed by the Treasury. Jenny Davey in the Times draws attention to the tax and the opposition it has encountered from the British Property Federation.

The tax will be levied on the rise in price on land for which planning permission has been granted. But the British Property Federation reckons that it could create unnecessary delay in the planning process, as well as reallocating profits from the process to national rather than local projects, and, in addition, could cause '"messy legal disputes" over the process in which the tax is calculated. This is always the result with nebulous calculations: it can be very tricky in a rising market to calculate any increase in land value as a result of development.

But there is one overarching problem which we can foresee with this tax: by increasing taxes on development without a commitment to spend such revenues locally, the government is making it less likely that planning permission will be granted for much needed housing and shops in local communities. At a time when the government is pledging to restore local community government and accountability, it seems strange that this tax should remove "the link between the developer, the development and direct community benefit."

Of course, they do not support, as the economic guru they are named for did, proper, simple, land value tax. But hopefully this will be persuade the Tories (who at least at local government level have come out against PGS) and spell the end for this ill thought out tax on development.