Recently in Papers Category

Property Taxation - Time for Reform 03.02.2011.ppt - slides of a talk by Jeremy Edge to PLRG on 3rd Feb 2011.

Since the RICS launched their major study last summer, it is clear that the scope of what they are likely to recommend to Government by way of tax reform has narrowed. Whilst there are fundamental, long-term issues with the current tax structure - Jeremy was highly critical of how the industry is hit by taxes at every stage of the property cycle - the proposals emerging will be limited to a few reforms that RICS' consultants believe have best chance of being accepted by those in power.

Jeremy said that "there is a very clear opportunity to reform Stamp Duty Land Tax" and some chance that Government will review its decision to drop 'tariff-style' developers' contributions. He believes that Treasury are keen to find way od simplifying the way that tax operates and also of looking at ways of capturing land value uplift - but without a complete reform of the current Council Tax and Business Rates systems, if possible.

In the discussion that followed, there was general agreement that there is little scope for making the current tax system have a more benigh impact on construction without wholesale reform - and that a site-value based system would achieve much greater simplification as well as economic efficiency.

Transitional Issues.doc is a draft paper, prepared by PLRG Hon Sec Dr Tony Vickers for the Coalition for Economic Justice, drawing on his work over 10 years researching the barriers to implementation of Land Value Taxation (LVT) in Britain. It is intended for policy makers and officials who might wish - or be charged with having - to make a major Tax Shift off Enterprise onto Land Rents as Revenue.

Comments on the paper are welcome, preferably by 14 Jan 2011, to the author.

Simplifying the tax system.ppt.pdf has been offered to PLRG by Mark Wadsworth, the author of a Bow Group (Conservative centre-right think-tank) contribution to the present Government's tax policy thinking - which wasn't accepted in 2005. But the global economy is very different now, in 2010.

Volterra note 22 Oct10.doc is a brief record by PLRG Hon Sec Dr Tony Vickers of a workshop he attended at the invitation of RICS to discuss how various taxes affect those who own, occupy and invest in land and property. It was part of an ongoing study which RICS commissioned in July 2010. Consultants Volterra and Edge P&D are undertaking the work. Workshop attendees came from across the spectrum of RICS' many disciplines.

Brief for UK Government.doc

This paper was prepared at the request of a member of the Coalition Government. It is not known how - if at all - it will be used. However it is a matter of public record that at least four of the Liberal Democrat ministers have been associated with the Party's LVT campaign group ALTER.

GEI2010.pdf

My doctoral studies have now ended at Kingston University and I am able to reveal, in detail, what I found. I was looking at how practical and useful it might be today to represent Britain's "economic reality" (the Landvaluescape) as a response surface, in a similar way to that in which landscape (physical reality) has for some decades been routinely represented using computers. In summary, my conclusion is as follows.

At the present time, despite maturity of spatial analysis techniques and developments in automated valuation and property data modelling, the policy and institutional environment is not yet conducive to the necessary property tax or land information market reforms. A business case for Value Maps exists but remains hard to convert into effective demand for products.

The thesis is here divided into discrete PDF files for downloading.

I would welcome feedback and collaboration in future research in pursuit of my recommendations.

abstract.pdf

With acknowledgements

Chapter 1 - Introduction: from land to landvaluescape - the importance of this research - testing the hypothesis

Chapter 2 - Review of the Literature: the Howes Study - later studies of value mapping - valuation theory and purposes - valuation methods (manual and authomated) - spatial analysis and displays from CAMA - geoinformation policy and polity - overall significance for British value mapping

Chapter 3 - Research Strategy & Method: characteristics of the hypothesis - choice of research method - design and launch of the value maps policy Delphi - progress of Delphi Process

Chapter 4 - Delphi Findings & Analysis: value mapping concepts - defining Britain's value mapping issue - issues most worth tackling - more intractable issues - response to the policy options - action plan for British value mapping - stakeholders as enablers and beneficiaries - the Delphi Process reviewed

Chapter 5 - British Landvaluescape Demonstrations: demonstrating other landvaluescapes - prolems with UK data - lessons for British landvaluescape demonstrators

Chapter 6 - Selected Overseas Comparisons: basis for selection - Global Overview - Denmark - United States - Lithuania - Sweden - Australia - global conclusions

Chapter 7 - Conclusions and Recommendations: revisiting the hypothesis and objectives - perceptions of economic reality Britain & overseas - the case for a British value mapping programme - towards a British value mapping project overall conclusions - recommendations

Glossary

Bibliography

Local Property Taxation as a Strategic Planning Tool in UK: Can 'Landvaluescape' Play a Role at Local Levels?

This is the title of an article published in the latest (August 2008) issue of Local Economy

The full article can be downloaded (on payment for non-subscribers) from here. The abstract is reproduced below.

ABSTRACT In common with many countries of the world, there are concerns within planning and regeneration circles regarding the very slow progress towards sustainable development and a realization that for progress to be achieved there is a need for government to act. Consequently, the UK government is seeking, through a variety of instruments, including the land use planning system, to mitigate the environmental impact of development. Indeed the overarching aim of the extant land use legislation (in particular, the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 and the Sustainable Communities Act 2007) is the promotion of sustainable communities, across the so-called "triple bottom line" of economic well-being, social justice and environmental protection. This paper discusses geo-political developments in the approach to funding local and regional government and how the UK is affected by these. The paper considers research in Britain into the potential for using aggregated property valuations as a method of monitoring economic health at a national and local scale, by applying geo-spatial modelling and display techniques. Given advances in the application of modern information systems (including the capture, management and display of geo-spatial data), the authors assess the potential of such systems for the status of relevant datasets in the UK.

For the third FIG Congress Running, Tony Vickers will be presenting a paper on his research relating to Value Maps and Land Value Taxation.

On Monday 9th October in Munich, TS 17 - Land Value Maps and Taxation
organised by FIG Commissions 9 (Valuation and Management of Real Estate) and 8 (Planning and Development)
will commence with a paper authored by Tony and his three PhD supervisors, based at Kingston University UK:
Prof. Sarah Sayce, Dr. Munir Morad, and Prof. Owen Connellan entitled:
Value Maps: The Next Utility? Synergies between Valuation, Spatial Analysis and Land Use Planning (0396)

The synopsis of the paper can be downloaded here

This month, the Liberal Democrat Party's Tax Commission (of which Tony was a member this past year) had its Policy Paper approved for debate at the Party Conference in September. The Lib Dems, Britain's third largest Party and believed by many to be likely to help form the next UK Government, are expected to approve a major shift in Direction of Travel (as their economics spokesman Vince Cable MP has put it) away from taxing wealth creation towards taxing pollution and wealth accumulation. Land Value Taxation (LVT) is seen as a part of this, in the longer term. LVT is included in future Green Taxes, although there is as yet no specific proposal to reform domestic property taxation in the Tax Commission's paper.

The Paper for FIG Congress includes a re-working of the findings of Tony's Delphi Group on Value Maps. A decision by the UK Government to introduce LVT was seen by the Delphi as crucial before it would take the necessary actions leading to Value Mapping.

The think-tank CentreForum has published the discussion draft of a paper it commissioned by Tony Vickers on its FreeThink site at http://www.free-think.com/land-value-taxation/

With support from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and drawing on his research at Kingston University, Vickers sets out a way through the political minefield of UK property tax reform.

The "Ignition" paper can be downloaded as a .pdf file from FreeThink. In its extended version, CentreForum has supplied HTML links to some references in the paper but the fully linked paper is currently only available through the Word version here. The text in blue has been removed by CentreForum to produce a shorter version. It is hoped to publish the full paper in hard-copy in Spring 2006, after taking account of comments received.