Half of England owned by less than 1% of pop.

[milkloss]

Does it matter? Article might be of interest.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-england-thousand-secret-landowners-author

 

[curlietailz]

It’ll matter if labour ever get into power
Slap a Land Tax in the landowners straight away
Twunts
Be the death knell of UK farming if ever that happened

 

[capfits]

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...wns-england-secretive-companies-hoarding-land
Does this matter?

It’ll matter if labour ever get into power
Slap a Land Tax in the landowners straight away
Twunts
Be the death knell of UK farming if ever that happened

Can you explain why you believe that to be the case?

 

[curlietailz]

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...wns-england-secretive-companies-hoarding-land
Does this matter?


Can you explain why you believe that to be the case?

Land Tax will mean large landowners will sell
Land values will collapse
No one will want to buy .... because of the land tax
Rents will increase to cover the land tax
Banks will forclose as land values will have collapsed
Carnage

 

[curlietailz]

Maybe if the actual farmer was the landowner then the land tax may not apply.... APR/BPR type thing

Maybe if the Labour govt only taxed the huge landowners like RSPB, etc. But I reckon those charities would be exempt and the farmer would be the fall guy ...again

I’m in doom and gloom mode again Im afraid :-(

 

[capfits]

Land Tax will mean large landowners will sell
Land values will collapse
No one will want to buy .... because of the land tax
Rents will increase to cover the land tax
Banks will forclose as land values will have collapsed
Carnage

Interesting but not conclusive. Just look at the US where there is a land tax......
Income tax does not stop people working
Wages have not risen to pay for income tax
Just saying like
Personally taxing work seems a bit extreme to me.
Tax a capital asset seems pretty fair.

 

[David.]

You'd perhaps like to think a distinction would be made between working farmer landowners and landed estates owners whose only merit was to have had an ancestor on the right side at some time or another in ancient history?

 

[Hindsight]

It’ll matter if labour ever get into power
Slap a Land Tax in the landowners straight away
Twunts
Be the death knell of UK farming if ever that happened

Will depend on the level of land tax, do you not think.

The presumption on this forum seems to be that a Labour Part land tax will be totally exorbitant. And there would be opportunity for a well structured tax to have appropriate reliefs. All that Labour is suggesting is to generate revenue taxation from a capital item. This would affect the capital value as the amount of tax would be capitalised into a reduction in the value of the asset. In a period of low interest rates since 2008 'wealthy' people have moved cash into assets. And somehow government of whichever political colour has to extract cash tax revenue from these people - difficult as they tend to have good accountants.

If the land tax were say £5hectare would that cause UK farming to cease? The Tory government is proposing a far harsher reduction in revenue with change to subsidy in the Agriculture Bill.

 

[DrWazzock]

Interesting but not conclusive. Just look at the US where there is a land tax......
Income tax does not stop people working
Wages have not risen to pay for income tax
Just saying like
Personally taxing work seems a bit extreme to me.
Tax a capital asset seems pretty fair.

Why is it fair to tax a capital asset? The value of land now has nothing to do with its productive worth and it purely incidental that its capital value has increased. The increase in capital value contributes nothing to our incomes unless we sell, then our means of making a living has gone.

In a year when profits are low or non existent , how would we be expected to pay a tax based in capital value?

Taxing capital assets is a rubbish idea.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

There is more land in farmers hands than ever in history when most of Wales was owned by a few

 

[Just a farmer]

'Land ownership revelations prompt Labour calls for new tax'

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/mark...p-revelations-prompt-labour-calls-for-new-tax

Made me do some sums with sources at bottom.

England population - 55,620,000
England size - 32,221,300 acres
Amount of farmland - 22,538,447 acres
% of England thats farmland - 70%
Average farm size - 210 acres
Amount of farms (based on average size) - 107325

If in an ideal world every farm owned the land they farmed it would mean that 70% of england was owned by 0.19% of the population if every farm had 1 owner.
If every farm had 2 owners it would be 0.39%.
... 4 owners would be 0.77%.
... 5 owners would be 0.96%.

5 owners would mean each owner had 42 acres of land. Average bare agricultrual land was £6970/acre. This gives a value of £292,740. Slightly more than the average value of a house in England which was £226,234.

The defra link also gives estimates for average income per farm although this is based farms with at least €25,000 of standing output. It puts that at £38,000/farm, so with 5 owners it would be £7600/owner. This is significantly less than the average household yearly spend.

Now I get that I've taken certain liberties with the sums above and I understand that the point of the article is that 50% is owned by 25,000... But where does the inequality argument over land ownership end?! Is 1% really the benchmark figure to use for a good headline? Grinds my gears.

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures...ations/population-of-england-and-wales/latest
https://assets.publishing.service.g...97013/regionalstatistics_overview_04apr18.pdf
https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/mark...agricultural-land-values-to-hit-five-year-low
http://landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ukhpi

I posted this in another thread earlier today. This thread wasn't created when I posted it.

 

[Roger Perry]

The Guardian article smacks of envy.
There is nothing stopping anyone getting out there and buying as much land as they want, its a free market just dig deep and cut that check.

 

[Roger Perry]

Interesting but not conclusive. Just look at the US where there is a land tax......
Income tax does not stop people working
Wages have not risen to pay for income tax
Just saying like
Personally taxing work seems a bit extreme to me.
Tax a capital asset seems pretty fair.

Nothing to fear in a tax on farm/ranch land, its graded on the lands productivity..........throw in the house and any improvements to the mix and divide by the acres...........

Here, each county set their own rate........its not a one size fits all.
The money stays and is spent within the county/state.

 

[glasshouse]

Land Tax will mean large landowners will sell
Land values will collapse
No one will want to buy .... because of the land tax
Rents will increase to cover the land tax
Banks will forclose as land values will have collapsed
Carnage

Where will the extra rent come from?
A luckybag?

 

[Roger Perry]

Here in the U.S. its' the landowner who pays.
Not the renter.

 

[PSQ]

I don’t suppose the Guardian have accounted for their urban readers ancestors, who willingly sold their land (and their middle class champagne ‘socialist’ descendents rights to it) to escape rural drudgery and move on mass to the gold paved streets promised to them by the ‘industrial revolution’?

 

[le bon paysan]

Here in the U.S. its' the landowner who pays.
Not the renter.

Same in France

 

[livestock 1]

What interests me is that there’s always plenty of socialist types wanting to own land rather that it being in the hands of who currently has it but doesn’t want any of the work commitment responsibility connected to it. In other words they are wanting something that is no use to them

 

[livestock 1]

Same in France

What rate is the tax? I farm 3000 acres of poor land. It doesn’t want to be too much

 

[le bon paysan]

What rate is the tax? I farm 3000 acres of poor land. It doesn’t want to be too much

30 euros Hc around here, LFA, depends on your ground though