TAXATION OF LAND VALUES.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20273, 26 June 1931, Page 17

TAXATION OF LAND VALUES.

AN ANNUAL LEVY. MR SNOW DEN'S PROPOSAL OUTLINED. fcraair oua owy coaazsPoiiDEKi.) LONDON, May 15. Ia the House of Commons on Monday Mr Philip Snowden outlined his proposals for the taxation of land values. The tax. ho explained, will be levied annually at the rate of a penny in the pound on. the ascertained capital value of land, excepting agricultural land, sites of churches, burial grounds, land owned by local authorities, railways, and other public utility concerns, and land owned by the National Trust. Exemption is also made for land owned by individual taxpayers on which the annual tax would not exceed 10s, land of a capital value below £l2O. This provision, Mr Snowden explained, "will relieve practically the whole of the working classes."

"Valuation of the land on this basis will begin in the autumn, and, according to Mr Snowden, will probably take two years to complete. It will cost between one and oue and a half millions, spread over three years. . It will be necessary to value between ten and twelve million hereditaments. Mr Snowden proposes to revive the provision, abolished eight years ago, under which information regarding all land sales shall be furnished to the Board of Inland Kevenue. Appeals may be made against the amount of the valuation. Objections over-ruled will be referred to the panel of referees appointed under Part I. of the Finance Act, 1909. No valuation will be made of minerals. "The practical difficulties in th way of assessing these," said Mr Snowden, "are, we find, almost insuperable. Moreover, it is the programme of the Government to nationalise minerals in due course." The tax will be levied on the owner of the land. Where land is owned by several persons holding various interests, it will be charged on the lessee—for leases exceeding fifty years; the freeholder —for leases under fifty years. the tax is to be paid by the lessee, provision will be made to enable him I to pass it on in certain circumstances. It was impossible, Mr Snowden declared, to give even an approximate estimate of the yield of such a tax. Any estimate "might be absurdly low or fantastically high."

Bight of the Community. The detail* of the tax will not be known until the Finance Bill is published, but there was no doubt that Mr Snowden contemplates a revolutionary change in the attitude towards the ownership of even small suburban garden. "In this measure," he said, "we are asserting the right of the community to the ownership of the land. If private owners continue to enjoy a nominal claim to land, then they must pay the community a rent for the privilege. The land was given by the Creator not for the use of dukes, but for the equal use of all His children," and he rapped his glasses on the Treasury box as he gave the words all the emphasis of which his recent illness has left him capable. "They must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" was another quip which ho reserved for the end of his speech. It at once drew cries •of "Seize 'em!" Many members murmured "God gave the land to the people" to the chant of the pre-war Liberal "Land Song." - Mr Lloyd George, taking close notes, polished up his brightest smile. When Mr Snowden announced the exemption of the small plots, the Conservatives showed a cynical amusement. "Of course," said Mr Snowden, "it would not be" worth while collecting such small sums." The Conservatives cried, "Ah! Votes! Watching the votfes!" Mr Snowden added: "This relief will relieve practically the whole of the working classes." , Comparison with New Zealand. An interesting letter, probably from a New Zeillander, signing himself "Croydon," appears in "The Times":— "Mr Snowden is strangely optimistic, " he writes, "if he hopes to compile a list of the capital values of the land holdings of Britain in two years. Indeed, I should say that he either knows nothing abq'ut the matter he has taken in liknd, or that if ho does, and has studied its history other countries, he is trading on r6garding it in Great Britain. "Mr Snowden, in earlier speeches, has quoted New Zealand as a country in which a land tax operates. Has he studied the operation of this system of taxation there, and its institution? For instance, when, in the . time of Sir George Grey (nearly fifty years ago, when there were comparatively few land holdings), it was decicfed to institute a land tax and compile a register of the Capital values of land, more than two years were required in which to complete the task. If two years were necessary in a very young colony, how much longer will it. take here, with a. population of nearly 50,000,000, and all the attendant' property aomplicationsf A revaluation in New Zealand nowadays takes a.lmos,t twd years! Property owners do not readily accept arbitrary valuations, and Mr Snowden will have to set up assessment tribunals to hear and adjudicate upon 'disputes,' and this itself entails delay and, I might say, expense.*'