SIR – The economic case for Land Value Taxation is certainly not invincible. It is a system of rates applied by bureaucrats targeted mostly on productive assets.
As spending by officialdom inevitably grows, funded by easy tax increases (witness the BBC), so do salaries, pensions, pay offs, expenses perks, politically correct nonsense, and badly managed services.
Land management demands capital and experience. Land deteriorates without constant investment. Its commerce is subject to natural and market variables that Land Taxation refuses to perceive. Productive geese that lay golden eggs, successful enterprises, are killed by aggressive tax burdens until it is no longer worth the effort.
Uncultivated land becomes a wilderness and productive employment disappears.
Why take commercial risks, invest and work to be a target for short-sighted people with a perverse agenda?
James Taylor,
Barraer,
Newton Stewart
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