five - Land tax: options for reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2022
Summary
Introduction
This book aims to explore how the Child Trust Fund (CTF) might be developed in future, and, more generally, how a new, more egalitarian politics of ownership might be advanced. I shall assume that policy makers would like to progress beyond the modest CTF introduced in the UK 2004 budget to a more radical policy of giving each citizen a substantial endowment. Some writers believe that funding citizen endowments via inheritance tax (IHT) is not politically feasible. This may or may not be true. Those who, like me, believe that IHT can be an instrument for social justice may have been taken aback when the most left-wing British Sunday broadsheet, the Observer, launched a campaign in early 2005 to reduce the impact of IHT. However, even if the people cannot be persuaded that IHT is a just tax, land taxation could substitute for IHT in this role.
The structure of the chapter is as follows. Section 1 traces the normative argument for land tax in its most persuasive proponents since Tom Paine. It shows how some of the classical arguments for IHT also work as arguments for a land tax. Section 2 asks, ‘Could land tax work?’, while section 3 asks ‘Could land tax fund a citizen’s stake?’ The answer is ‘Yes’ to both questions.
Classical arguments: Paine, Ricardo, the two Georges
Paine
Tom Paine produced the first clear proposal for a citizen's stake in 1797. The subtitle of his Agrarian justice (1995 [1797]) indicates that he had precisely the same idea as the one behind this book, although he also wished to endow an old-age pension entitlement. The title page reads:
AGRARIAN JUSTICE,/OPPOSED TO/AGRARIAN LAW/AND TO/AGRARIAN MONOPOLY/BEING A PLAN FOR MELIORATING THE CONDITION OF MAN, BY CREATING IN EVERY NATION A NATIONAL FUND,
To pay to every Person, when arrived at the Age of TWENTYONE YEARS, the Sum of FIFTEEN POUNDS Sterling, to enable HIM or HER to begin the World!
And also,
Ten pounds Sterling per Annum during life to every Person now living of the Age of FIFTY YEARS, and to all others when they shall arrive at that Age, to enable them to live in Old Age without Wretchedness, and go decently out of the World. (Paine, 1995 [1797], p 409)
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- Information
- The Citizen's StakeExploring the Future of Universal Asset Policies, pp. 69 - 86Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2006