Thursday, November 25, 2010

Irish budget: interesting detail on site value tax

From the Reuters summary of the Irish budget, we note an interesting detail:

Measures will broaden the tax base, abolish or curtail a range of tax exemptions and relieves, and introducing a new site value tax.

On the surface, this looks like a land value tax. This follows a release at the beginning of the month from an Irish group called the Smart Taxes Network, calling for a site value tax: "a proposed annual charge on the value of residentially zoned land" and it stresses that this is not a property tax. As they say:

"The tax collects much of the increase in land values caused by services and infrastructure provided by national and local government, so that increased tax revenues will gradually repay public expenditure."

That does look like a land value tax. However, this was just what was called for a few weeks ago, though we don't have confirmation that this is what they mean in the budget itself. Some property surveyors seem to think otherwise: they are calling it a property tax. Interested if anyone can provide more info. Read more on land value taxes here.

2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Hi,
The Site Value Tax is indeed a Land Value Tax, applying to residential and then commercial land. We called it SVT rather than LVT so as not to rouse the wrath of the farmers' groups. We're interested in exploring how a rural LVT can be used to encourage carbon sequestration/biodiversity, etc., but that's another year's research.

The Four-Year Plan outlines that Site Value Tax will be implemented in 2012. This is preceded by a one-year flat tax, which is also, confusingly and inaccurately, called a site value tax.

For more info, check out:
http://smarttaxes.org/site-value-tax/

and:
http://smarttaxes.org/2010/11/25/smart-taxes-welcomes-announcement-of-site-value-tax/

3:30 am  
Anonymous Natalie said...

Such a great article which The tax collects much of the increase in land values caused by services and infrastructure provided by national and local government, so that increased tax revenues will gradually repay public expenditure.Which the law economics.Thanks a lot for sharing this article.

5:31 am  

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