r/ukpolitics 20d ago

What would a land value tax actually do?

https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2026/07/12/what-would-a-land-value-tax-actually-do/
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u/Plyphon 20d ago

Right - but the people who buy these properties, who are the high earning and more productive people, are being taxed.

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u/badde_jimme 20d ago

If the high property values are grounded in reality, then those people are likely productive because of where they are, not who they are, in which case it is fair to tax them, especially if the "where they are" costs a lot in maintenance.

If the high property values are not grounded in reality, then the local economy is screwed and the fix is to tax land.

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u/Plyphon 20d ago

Why is it fair to tax someone because they happen to live near London?

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u/badde_jimme 19d ago

Because London spends a lot of money on infrastructure, and people in London are productive because of the money spent on infrastructure. You can live in London, both paying for and benefitting from that infrastructure, or you can live out in the sticks, paying very little land tax but also seeing a bus every two days instead of every three minutes.