Tell Me What's the Word? Johannesburg

One City, One Choice, One Cock Up: Decay or Hope

One Upon a Time, Johannesburg (Jo-Burg in cool talk) had a land value tax that was the envy of - if not the world - me. A city with little natural wealth or locational advantages became an economic and finance powerhouse, while sweet and sylvan Cape Town had always languished.

As Professor Mason Gaffney wrote, Jo-Burg by any objective measure prospered under LVT.

Now, after the adoption of morally essential political change, South Africa is seeking to transform its economy to an inclusive and open one. Yet, with government tax and finance policy they really screwed it up big time.

Of course, it took foreign experts to really put a truncheon to Jo-burg's opportunity. The South African government now proudly mandates taxes on land and buildings, just like the Americans and Europeans told them to, so the introduction of the "new" property tax has taxpayers of all stripes nervous and scared, as the article indicates

In a classic case of officials worried about taxpayer backlash (you can almost smell the sweat of fear in the article), they are shovelling platitudes very quickly indeed:

Said Council spokesman Virgil James: “It would be unfair and incorrect to speculate on what it will cost ratepayers before the city has even determined the tax base and tax rate,” he said.

Well, call me unfair, but I bet I'm not incorrect: By taxing their houses for the first time in 100 years, the Jo-Burg government are going to tax the poor and working class citizens of Jo-burg heavily and unfairly. Land speculators and the rich will be very happy. Land ownership will again concentrate to the few.

Jo-Burg will start to empty,start to decay and become impoverished, just as South Africa got a handle on their crime problem and after the promise of a new day after apartheid. Sad.

Local Government Funding in the UK: Trip, Stumble and Fall?

I have quite a few pals in the UK, who are trying hard to get the word out about LVT. Naturally, it isn't easy. The Tories think that land value taxes are unfair to the Duke of Westminsters of the world, a relic knee-jerk from the threat that Churchill and Lloyd George's People's Budget 0f 1910 posed. During that bloodletting, the Lords gave up their power of the purse, rather than give up their private land rent.
Labour, or at least New Labour, contends that the land value tax is quaint, like (ha ha ha) the window tax of yore. Nothing like sniggering yuppies to put the country on the right track!

Yet, the winds of change are buffeting the somnolent minds of Britain. Today's Guardian
has a great bit of commentary by Ashley Seager, the Guardian's Economics Correspondent. titled A Land Tax is 200 Years Overdue. Amen.

Also, The Daily Mail - which seems to specialize in expressing the "we can't take it any more" segment of the British population - leads with a Labour scheme to change local council ratings (the local property tax to Americans) from a vague banding system of value to one based on frequent reassessments, the better to snatch value from improvements to property.

As Paul Weller used to shout "Oi!" The worst way to reform a property tax is to tax more of what we want people to do: fix up, build and invest in new homes. Already, council tax rewards unused and vacant buildings. this new twist will discourage use and reuse of property further.
Stories like this are popping up all over the UK, and everyone should read them and contribute. I managed to get a comment into the readers' forum...

Oi! All over the country
(We want a new direction)