No to the Property Tax

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• By: banjoagbeanjoe Mon, 03 Jan 2022 11:45:33

  Look, I’m thick I know.
  But I’m a leftist who is in favour of property taxes. As a progressive measure. Big time. Like, the more property you have the harder you’re hit by the tax, the more you have to pay. Tax the property-owning bastards until they get down on their knees and beg the commune to take their ill-gotten property back off them to be shared among the communards.

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• By: Tomboktu Mon, 03 Jan 2022 12:18:44

  In reply to banjoagbeanjoe.

  And tax all property, not just houses, apartments and other real estate. Own a van Gogh or Picasso pencil sketch that’s worth, oh, €1.2m? Yes, that’s property.

  Beneficiary of a trust? Yeah, property for which you will be taxed.

  Shares in a firm above a threshold? Yes, that’s property, and no, we won’t wait until the gains are realised as cash to tax you on the capital gain, we are taxing the wealth along the way too.

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• By: WorldbyStorm Mon, 03 Jan 2022 12:34:37

  In reply to Tomboktu.

  Tend to agree.All wealth, including housing, has to be taxed. I can see why tactically the route was taken but it always sat uneasily with me.

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• By: EWI Mon, 03 Jan 2022 13:29:26

  In reply to banjoagbeanjoe.

  Owning a second house should be a privilege you bloody well pay for (the latest fashion, the ‘accidental landlord’, can go take a run and jump). Matched by sobering fines on unoccupied and abandoned properties in danger of dereliction.

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• By: banjoagbeanjoe Mon, 03 Jan 2022 14:03:56

  In reply to EWI.

  Also. Owning a first house.

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• By: Jim Monaghan Mon, 03 Jan 2022 16:37:37

  Well we will now have renters paying for second homes and mansions due to the Mica scandal.

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• By: Bodb Mon, 03 Jan 2022 18:22:01

  “NO TO THE PROPERTY TAX” — United Left Alliance

  “Tell me, do you ever open a book at all?”

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• By: banjoagbeanjoe Mon, 03 Jan 2022 18:51:02

  In reply to Bodb.

  A quote from At Swim Two Birds. Always welcome. But the relevance?

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• By: Bobd Mon, 03 Jan 2022 19:07:24

  In reply to banjoagbeanjoe.

  Left politics cannot just be about things that people don’t like. There has to be some level of critical analysis.

  Taxes on property are fundamental to even a minimal left programme anywhere. It is reasonable to oppose the scale or the applicability of a property tax but principled opposition (even as a slogan)…..?

  “EDUCATE, Organise, Agitate”

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• By: Alibaba Mon, 03 Jan 2022 21:00:03

  A basic human right is to have a roof over your head. That’s why I’m not in favour of any tax on one’s home. Additional homes and assets should attract tax appropriately.  But if protest against a home tax can be a focus for agitational  politics, let it rip.

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• By: WorldbyStorm Mon, 03 Jan 2022 21:16:05

  In reply to Alibaba.

  That raises an important point, how one can vindicate that human right while also allowing for taxation of housing property. Personally I don’t see the two in conflict. There’s many ways to deal with it – proportional levels of taxation – and with very clear allowances when owners are occupiers. But I find it difficult to believe that somehow unlike any other property a house, even when used as a home, is different to any other sort of property – not least given the huge range of houses that are extant.

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• By: Bobd Mon, 03 Jan 2022 21:27:37

  In reply to Alibaba.

  An owner-occupier democracy is an admirable liberal objective, an effective basis for agitation and a secure barrier against socialism

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• By: EWI Tue, 04 Jan 2022 02:58:05

  In reply to Bobd.

  An owner-occupier democracy is an admirable liberal objective, an effective basis for agitation and a secure barrier against socialism

  Getting rid of the petty landlord class will do a lot to remove that ‘barrier against socialism’, which already exists out there. Even something tangential like long-term security of tenure would surely be something radical, worthwhile and easy to argue for?

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• By: Alibaba Tue, 04 Jan 2022 07:18:27

  In reply to EWI.

  Fair enough, EWI, we can all see the value of supporting something radical, especially when it addresses the understandable concerns of others.

  WbS I see the points you are making, and like the reference to allowances etc., though I don’t fully agree that we shouldn’t argue against the home tax.

  Bobd, one of the reasons for the revolutionary left to make headway in today’s world is a failure to engage with those resisting austerity measures like the Property Tax here by keeping fighting campaigns as broad, diverse elements in a democratic manner united in fighting the common enemy- capitalism.

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• By: WorldbyStorm Tue, 04 Jan 2022 09:25:14

  In reply to Alibaba.

  I think my position would be I fully agree with you re a right to housing and a home but that that doesn’t necessitate a right for house or home to be untaxed. Or put it another way, I would never want someone put out of their home over taxation but that the state/polity/community has a right to expect either during or end of tendency (contingent on ability to pay in the former case) some degree of tax. I’ve a deeper problem with private ownership in any case and feel shared ownership is perhaps a better way to go in any case. There’s a further issue as to what constitutes private property and so on which is very interesting.

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• By: Alibaba Tue, 04 Jan 2022 12:06:41

  In reply to Alibaba.

  Many topics there, worthy for consideration. Also that the property tax is due for payment by those who own (not rent from state authorities) a residential property. Yet when people protested against this tax which they rightly saw as double taxation, and thousands mobilised in anger, the revolutionary left alone called for its non-payment. The pertinent issue is this: which side are we on? The fact that the battle wasn’t won doesn’t make it wrong. It radicalised many people.

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• By: WorldbyStorm Tue, 04 Jan 2022 12:42:27

  In reply to Alibaba.

  I guess it’s like any campaign, it can radicalise but it can go in different directions of radicalisation. For example some of the freeman stuff which ran parallel to the campaigns certainly got a bit of a boost from them – doesn’t make the campaigns wrong but one has to have front and centre the fact that one’s politics does require equity up to and including taxation of property. Granted that’s difficult in a campaign but absolutely necessary so that people don’t feel later they’ve been let down or lied to.

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• By: Bobd Wed, 05 Jan 2022 02:09:20

  My point was not that the left should not be involved in agitation against policies that bear on the working class but that it should never shirk its responsibility to educate. It was reasonable to oppose the the “Property Tax” as extra burden on the homes of working people but for a significant minority of the population, houses are also a form of capital accumulation which should be taxed and we should not have shirked that issue. Actual property taxes such as CGT and inheritance taxes treat such capital accumulation fairly benignly

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