Tom Winnifrith Bearcast 2 April - Domestic Servitude for me & the Ronnie Corbett issue

Comments

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   Giles

   2 April 2016, 11:00

   Whilst I agree with your basic sentiment about Inheritance Tax and your piece on Ronnie Corbett,you have overlooked the main part was about his residence on which he will not have paid any Income Tax, so the substantial increase in value has not been taxed. The way to do away with Inheritance Tax is to introduce Capital Gains Tax on private main residences,and this would have the great advantage of stopping the ridiculous increase in property prices and allow most people eventually to get on the housing ladder

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   Nigel Martin

   2 April 2016, 12:44

   Two suggestions for your book title: “How to lose Money” or “Bad bet”.

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   Striebs

   3 April 2016, 08:25

   Giles ,

   Your objective of introducing a negative feedback loop into accommodation prices is admirable but a transaction tax like CGT is not the right way of doing it .

   Have you heard of location value tax (LVT) , a.k.a. land value tax ? It is not actually a tax but an annual charge for “exclusive use of the commons” . The level is based on the economic rent potential of the land . An undeveloped lot would be due the same charge as the adjacent developed lot .

   In most of the world outside the U.S. , mineral rights are communally owned . This is the case in the U.K. for oil and gas rights which are communally owned via the proxy of The Crown .

   Absurdly , surface rights on the other hand are privately owned . This is tantamount to privatising nature and no better than the U.S. patent office granting a company a patent on the D.N.A. of an Amazonian tribe .

   In a way LVT just extends the principal of communal ownership of underground natural resource to surface natural resources ; the most important of which being surface land .

   It is absurd that work and industry are taxed so highly yet land gets all sort of incentives . Public money is used to improve infrastructure , policing , local schools to improve the value of land and the gains are privatised by landlords and houseowners .

   Churchill was a supporter and gives a very eloquent explanation of why all true capitalists should be in favour of LVT . Vested interests prevented Churchill and David Lloyd George shifting taxation back from labour onto land .

   http://www.landvaluetax.org/current-affairs-comment/winston-churchill-said-it-all-better-then-we-can.html

   Mark Wadsworth has the best info on LVT http://markwadsworth.blogspot.co.uk

   By shifting the burden of taxation onto land , tax can be reduced on truly private endeavors like labour and enterprise .

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   J P Spaghetti

   3 April 2016, 10:38

   GILES

   “The way to do away with Inheritance Tax is to” do away with inheritance! Imagine that…a utopia in which people advance and are rewarded by society on merit and bon chance alone. One in which no person is disadvantaged purely on the grounds of mummy and/or daddy’s material possessions. In which the unthick advance on merit and bon chance alone. You may say I’m a dreamer, but think of the benefits – those of real ability having influence and power, better chins, half-decent Bond themes…