Land tax would benefit the majority and should be brought in without delay

There is no doubt that prices are rising fast and are set to continue to rise. It is clear that energy prices will be at the centre of this, and that Scottish consumers will be hit hardest by this, because we have a colder climate and higher percentage of the population on low incomes, and a higher percentage of the population on pre-pay meters, paying more for their fuel than the rest of the UK.

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The SNP can wait for Westminster to offer support to those worse off and then pass it on, or they can use their taxation powers in a way that the UK Government never envisaged and find new ways of raising revenue to help the Scottish people.

Now Graeme’s land tax is ideal for that. It can raise a great deal of revenue without raising it from people’s incomes or expenditure, but directly from the wealthy landowners who have gained from increasing land values without paying any tax on it.

Such a tax could be easily collected, would be impossible to evade, would not damage economic activity, and could raise substantial revenue.

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It would be welcomed by most people in Scotland with the exception of big landowners, many of whom do not live or vote in Scotland, and it would give more support to the SNP in its independence campaign.

Boris Johnson and Union Jack, the Tory Secretary of State for Scotland, would not like it and would be enraged, but they would be unable to prevent it. Come on Nicola, now is the time to fight back.

Andy Anderson
Saltcoats

A RADICAL approach to taxation and a serious impact toward land reform in one fell swoop! Now you’re talking, Graeme McCormick.

All living land-based creatures are born free ... for a moment, then reality checks in. Enclosure by mankind’s strictures, in whatever form, limit freedom of movement. Some are already born with greater freedom and opportunity than others, some aspire to achieve such goals, whether Bezos flying high or a blackie yowe and her lamb scanning the dykes, they ‘ll find a weak spot in defences toward their goal.

Countless more, however – the majority – have not a hope in hell’s chance. Such is the way of it in a nation where land is an ever-increasingly valuable tradable investment without limit of area and commitment toward compensation to all others denied of that area. The ultimate of such a scenario is that from the all-born-free situation, all land ends up under the control of an ever-decreasing few – precisely the path we are on today and have been since the first greedy sod set foot in Scotland.

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Consider the nonsense that a large castle or mansion house on a vast estate pays little more council tax than a four-bed and garden, and probably less than a close and six flats.

Our land is finite, it is that area we are all born into, and we must have recompense for the opportunity denied by ownership.

We must tax the privilege of ownership for the denial of ownership by others by the introduction of Annual Ground Floor and Roof Rent. It is that simple, and high time the Scottish Government embraced the situation, which would turn around opportunity and remove poverty as never before.

Tom Gray
Braco

GRAEME McCormick is absolutely right to urge a fiscal approach to land reform, but it is worrying to read that even a Scottish Government minister is unaware of what can be achieved under Holyrood’s powers. Ever since its inception the Scottish Parliament has had power over local taxation, but more recently the devolved powers over income tax rates and bands have given Scotland the opportunity to distance itself from the Westminster model. A move away from destructive taxes on work and enterprise would give the Scottish economy a huge boost and put clear blue water between Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Land values are the natural source of public revenue. Land has no production cost and its value is publicly-generated, arising simply as a measure of the relative level of public demand for particular locations, further enhanced by the provision of publicly-funded infrastructure and services. In a just society, land values should be recycled into the public purse to be used for public purposes, not allowed to haemorrhage into a relatively small handful of private pockets.

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The great economists from Adam Smith to the present day agree that A tax on economic rent, such as that proposed by Mr McCormick, is non-distortive. It distinguishes between earned and unearned wealth and, unlike our current tax system, does not penalise the wealth creators. With the cost-of-living crisis forcing more and more people into poverty and Westminster’s “levelling up” looking increasingly like a meaningless slogan, Scotland should take matters into its own hands.

John Digney
Stirling