Jeremy hunt more tax cuts

Good luck with that. 
As far as I know the only restraint is the wealth's understanding of the outcome if they push too hard. 

Feel free to pick up the thread where it broke away. I'll be glad to discuss. 

Excellent. 
Lets make a start (No experts here, as far as I know)
I think a land tax is in practice a good idea, for the average person this would partially replace council tax. For larger land owners it would be an encouragement to use the land (To pay the tax) Those with enormous gardens or land they use as a method of storing wealth would simply pay tax on it. 

There would need to be definitions of types of land (Agricultural/building/ fallow etc) This is in the main because the government rather than the individual designates land use. 

In my experience, It's quite hard to encapsulate all of the arguments for a land tax without a 'back and forth'. This is because the tax breaks several rules of thumb regarding taxation.

People are quite used to to the rule of thumb' notion that a tax will tend to increase prices and so, when you tell them that a tax on land will reduce prices, they will find the notion laughable and stop listening. This is a problem because the fact that land taxes reduce prices has a sound argument, but it requires a certain amount of economics.

The price of (say) shoes will rise if shoe sales are taxed because the cost of the tax to the producer translates to an increase in scarcity (reduction in supply) . Modeling the rise in prices as the producer 'jacking' up the price to cover the tax, is not wrong, in that this is what happens, but it misses out a key component of the mechanism. A price is always, always set by the relationship between supply and demand. In the case of land, the supply is fixed (at 1 everywhere?) because land is not produced and cannot be transported. There can't be a reduction in the supply of land in response to a tax, because the supply of land is a topological / geometrical fact that has nothing to do with landowner or his activity. Right now, given my experience of talking to you, you may well be able to think of exceptions to this - ie what if a landowner drains a swamp?.- my advice would be to put these to one side for now, because they are truly exceptions that could easily be dealt with by any system as exceptions. Note instead how close my statement is to being completely and utterly true.

Land has these qualities that make it unique as a commodity (a thing traded between people)

1 Nobody produces it -and the corollary, more cannot be produced
2 It cannot be transported from where it is not needed to where it is needed (more)
3 It is needed for all production - and any form of civilised existence..

The three in combination mean a landowner's claim is a form of monopoly power. This 'monopoly' power can be best and simply illustrated by looking at what happens (or what could theoretically happen if trade applied) when land is needed for some significant project like a road or railway. I a landowner is unwilling to sell, the government cannot 'get in another supplier' at a more reasonable rate because no other landowner is entitled to supply land at that location. Given some significant investment, the landowner is empowered to charge up to that sunk cost, or the advantages of the entire plan / route over its nearest competitor. Of course, if the government falls back to the nearest competitor, the same rules apply again.

Of course we have 'compulsory purchase' as a fix to this monopoly power and , in a distant sense, this might be a pity, because while the fix is place the rampant and unreasonable power of the landowner is somewhat camouflaged. People see compulsory purchase as a pragmatic necessity or the government standing on 'the little guy', but few pause to consider why it is there at all - why, for instance, the government doesn't need anything but trade, to reliably obtain boots for its soldier or computers for its office staff, but hits a difficulty when it comes to land.

The above is largely an economic argument. However, there is also strong justice argument for a land tax.

The value of land (the price the land would command if it were bare land) is not the landowner's doing. It is created by the qualities of the location it occuppies and these qualities are created by all the activity around the land that has nothing to do with him. For a typical landowner, the value of the land he holds has less to do with any contribution he makes than it has to do with contribution a shop worker on the next street, a transport worker at nearby train-station or an automobile designer who lives one hundred miles away. The value / price (and the very function) of his land is created by the work of the entire community.

This justice issue best illustrated by what happens with schools. We all know a local (good) school will attract higher house prices. The hidden and dirty truth is that people are using mortgages to pay landowners for access public services rendered by government. However, the government, rather than tax this illegitimate collection of payments for services rendered by others, instead attempts to tax the teaching staff and producers to provide the service.

I agree that a very interesting conversation was missed, Let's see what happens next with this discussion

I have in recent years come to believe that productive incomes are overtaxed whilst wealth is undertaxed. To a certain extent some of the latter can be moved offshore, but one thing that cannot be is land and anything built upon it.

I have for a while now favoured the introduction of a land value tax either to pay for the additional services we need or to reduce income taxes, or a bit of both. Re income taxes I would like to see the gradual abolition of the more regressive of the two income taxes - National Insurance - big rises in the basic rate thresholds to a point where no one on minimum wage pays income tax, big rises in the higher rate threshold so that no one struggling to pay a reasonable mortgage pays higher rate tax, and perhaps as part of the package abolition of the 45p rate at the very top.

But - and this is crucial - this country and the fabric of our society cannot possibly afford the level of cuts that would be necessary to fund this. Which is where a land value tax comes in. Such a tax should be introduced and gradually raised to a level sufficient to pay for the suggested reductions in income taxes. Eventual goal? Just two rates of income taxes - 20% and 40%, both starting at much higher threshold levels, funded by increases in tax on land.

There is a potential argument for taxing unearned income at a higher rate than earned. And there is also an argument for tweaking capital gains taxes in such a way that it discourages short term profiteering and asset stripping but rewards gains made from longer term productive investment. Long term investment in successful , expanding, and productive enterprises, creating jobs and wealth, is just the sort of thing we should be encouraging with very low CGT rates to reward such investors. Whilst more short time asset stripping to get a fast buck which is more likely to cut wealth creation and jobs should be taxed more harshly, likewise gains made simply by increases in property values.

We should be using CGT as a tool to encourage much more productive investment whilst discouraging less productive investment and simple profiteering.

But both my points re unearned incomes and CGT are distractions from the issue of taxes on land versus taxes on income, and are themselves issues with many complexities. So perhaps we should set them aside for now and come back to them later?

But on the whole I favour a rebalancing of tax away from incomes and towards land.

There would indeed be complications. There is for example a big difference between land being productively farmed to produce potatoes, carrots, onions, etc, or to provide grazing areas for animals we ultimately rely upon for meat and dairy products, and land simply used as hunting grounds for the mostly better off or otherwise not being used productively. Clearly taxing productive farmland to any great extent would risk undermining the competitiveness of our own farmers, many of whom are struggling already, whilst also resulting in food price inflation. These would not be welcome developments and need to be avoided. It is non-productive land and the value of expensive properties upon it which should be taxed rather than productive farmland.

But defining what is productive and non-productive land is unlikely to be clear cut in many cases. For example Longleat is mostly not being used for productive farming, but the land is being used to allow wild animals of a kind not native to this country to roam free as a major tourist attraction. Would this be defined as a productive or non-productive use of the land? Or what if some entrepreneur has bought up a couple of acres to build a fun park on it that proves popular with locals and tourists, and makes a lot of money for the local economy whilst providing at least seasonal jobs? Would this be deemed a productive use of land? I would tend to say yes to both examples, yet already we are seeing ever more limits on where a full blooded land tax might be valid. 

Also, at what point in law would land deemed to be productively farmed? How could Lord Hufton-Tufton be prevented from avoiding the tax simply by buying a cow to wander around in a field all day? I think therefore that not only should there be a tax on non-productive land which needs careful definition, but also taxes on high value properties on the land, if it is to raise enough money.