Here's another one which keeps coming up and which I have now added to The List.
"Over sixty per cent of voters are home owners and turkeys don't vote for Xmas"
This is a non-argument.
Even if were a valid objection, you might as well point out that considerably more than 60% of people have income on which they have to pay income tax and/or employment income on which they have to pay National Insurance; that nearly everybody buys goods and services subject to VAT etc.
If 'the tyranny of the majority' were an important factor in designing a tax system, then we would find that the only taxes levied would be those only ever borne by a minority (for example alcohol, tobacco and gambling duty, possibly corporation tax and Business Rates).
And as a matter of fact, for most households (certainly for most working age households) their earnings as a share of total national earnings is much higher than the value of their home as share of total land wealth, so shifting taxes from the former to the latter will reduce the tax bills for most households (quite dramatically, as it happens).
Those who would see their net income fall would mainly be members of The One Per Cent whose entire income consists of monopoly income (land rents, mortgage interest, the value of banking licences etc). Everybody else, and the productive economy as a whole, wins.
So if we did have 'the tyranny of the majority', Land Value Tax would be the way forward!
Debate Magazine
