| MrT-Tar said:
Where I think our tax system fails is that it generally (with the exception of inheritance and capital gains) taxes income rather than wealth. I read in the New Statesman not too long ago that 1% of the U.K population owns roughly 70% of the land in the country. If a 'land tax' was introduced and it had a threshold high enough to not include most farmers, believe that it could produce a much fairer tax system. |
Farmers being the key bit of that statement as out of the 70% of that land majority of it is farm land. Introducing a land tax and having a high threshold would be hard to introduce based on the fact there are so many type of farm in this country. My families farm is mainly fruit and requires less land to make a profit (not that any farmers really make a profit) but a farmer could be 4 times the size and mainly farms wheat and will make less money per acre then my family.
Farmland is dominant round my way, what few 'rich' there are, the land is tiny in comparison to the size of the local farms. That beside, some farmers are rich and some rich might try and pass their land as farming to be exempt (many do rent land out to farmers).
Although the idea is a nice one.
I do however agree that the 0% then 20% then 40% etc thresholds are a good tax system.
Hmm, pie.
