At election time, the ruling party's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of tax cuts. Tax cuts for their supporters of course and sneaky tax rises for those that support the other party, so for Labour, it's a cut to the basic rate and for the Tories it's a tax cut to the higher rate of income tax. These measures have a grave fault; they lack precision. Winning elections is not about getting your supporters to vote for you, it's getting people to switch sides. Rich people tend to vote Tory anyway, so tax cuts for the rich aren't going to bring many over to their side, similarly for Labour and the not so well off. This is compounded by the fact that getting an increased share of the vote is no guarantee of success, what you need is an increased share of the vote in a few key marginals.
Now imagine that our main tax base is land. Now tax cuts can be much more precisely targetted. Most Labour supporters live in cities, but crucially, many Labour marginals are urban as well, so a cut in LVT aimed at built-up areas will please everyone in those key constituencies. Similarly for the Tories and rural areas. Of course, it wouldn't be sold like that, it would be "encouraging people to return to the inner cities" or "taking the pressure off our more densely-populated areas" or some such similar guff.
Perhaps our politicians haven't seen LVT in this light. On the other hand, should it be pointed out?
