The Independent: Nick Clegg's conference speech: 'Tax Wealth, Not Work' should have been the slogan

29 Sep 2012

The Independent: Nick Clegg's conference speech: 'Tax Wealth, Not Work' should have been the slogan, but it should be "Tax rents not work" but the public don't understand the economic meaning of rent. So ALTER finds itself using the slogan "Tax wealth not work" on one of our banners even though Land Value Taxation is not a wealth tax. Buildings and other wealth go untaxed under a tax system based on rents. There is no need to tax wealth if you are taxing economic rent or unearned increment as Churchill called it. By taxing rent you tax the unearned accumulation of wealth, as much of the wealth of the very wealthy comes from rents not enterprise. For every entrepreneur like Dyson there are probably 100 or more that got much of their wealth from rent. We also use "Tax land not work", but that makes it look like its the only form of Rent we are proposing to tax or that the burden of the tax falls on green fields, when we propose little or no revenue would come from this source. So unless someone can come up with a better slogan, ALTER we continue using "Tax wealth not work" for now, even if we have to explain the difference every time we do a talk on Land Tax.

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