fredag 15 februari 2019

Is LVT really such a hard sell?

People are more emotional than logical and the process of paying LVT would feel different to some of the other taxes it would replace. People would notice the payment more and object. 

Perhaps, but one of the issues with other taxes is that the INCIDENCE of the tax is not necessarily the person nominally responsible for payment, as taxes are passed along.

The incidence of PAYE Income Tax and NI is on the employer and forms part of labour costs. It is functionally equivalent to a payroll tax. This means that employers are under pressure to reduce labour costs by replacing workers with capital even though it results in a worse service, or no service at all, and is, in reality, uneconomic. Supermarket self-service checkouts are an example. Alternatively, the employee taxes are passed on in higher prices.
It does not stop there, because these taxes cut into employers' profits, resulting in less being collected in other taxes including property taxes (UBR) and Corporation Tax.

It is a similar situation with VAT. Retailers attempt to absorb some of it in order to maintain volumes of sales. That why cuts in VAT, which sometimes occur, are not fully passed on in price cuts.

It is extremely difficult to establish the true incidence of taxes. In the long run, all taxes are passed on to landowners as they cut into rent. This was first noticed by the French Physiocrats but is also a corollary of Ricardo's Law of Rent. The problem this causes is that locations where business would be viable in the absence of tax are incapable of sustaining business activity under the present tax regime. Thus, the taxes amplify regional economic disadvantage and are one reason why regional economic imbalance is so intractable.
LVT would be paid as it is now, by monthly instalments. In the case of leaseholders, the tenants' share could be added to the ground rent and the entire tax paid over by the freeholder. It would no more be noticed than any other regular payment made by standing order.

1 kommentar:

Mark Wadsworth sa...

"People would notice the payment more and object."

So collect via people's PAYE codes i.e. deduct from salaries, the same as collecting the tax due on any other benefit in kind charge which is coded out, mainly cars, but could be accommodation.

https://markwadsworth.blogspot.com/2019/02/killer-arguments-against-lvt-not-452.html

That gives you automatically more winners than losers.

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