The democratic struggle moves towards respect for the rights of all. Reform follows when the rights of some are seen to blatantly burden others involving a denial of their rights. In the UK a new regulation is coming into force that will criminalise the squatting of someone else's home. Up until now it was usually a civil offence if someone moved in uninvited. Now it will go like this: You are out. Squatters are in. Police are in. Squatters are out (cops leading). You are in. Quickly.
Squatting usually happens after buildings have been left empty and the hard cases such as someone having a long hospital stay and finding squatters in when they get back home are quite rare. Besides there are apparently criminal remedies for such squatting already before this new law .
Squatting is one symptom of our divided nation. We inordinately favour home owners to the detriment of the propertyless. See this YouTube video where Fred Harrison uses researches from his book Richardo's Law, House Prices and The Great Tax Clawback Scam . He shows that the nest egg that accrues to many homeowners in the equity stake over a lifetime, effectively refunds a huge amount of income and other taxes that the homeowner has paid over the years. This, whilst being a brilliant wheeze for homeowners, blights the lives and social opportunities of renters and tenants. Poverty. A huge imbalance is perpetuated in our society through our failure to face up to this unfairness. We unfairly burden renters with the tax for the services we all use and unfairly allow a protected nest egg (i.e. tax refund) to homeowners. Horrendous for any democrat worthy of the name. We don't even have adequate rent controls - see this UK/Germany.
Howard Davies, a one-time deputy governor of the Bank of England in a article in the Financial Times A wealth tax may work once but don't make it a habit advocates taxing all land values rather than the wealth taxes mentioned by Lib-Dem Nick Clegg. A levy on the location value of all land would address the land utilisation problem that is one root of the squatting problem. If you had a property that you were keeping empty but had to pay a levy on its land value every year you would soon let the building out and the rent payments would cover the new levy. Hey! With every landlord having to rethink about their empty properties, rents might drop so that even poor potential squatters could pay them.
Trouble is there are more homeowner-voters than renter-voters. Homeowners-voters must be given a promise of a drop in income tax to match a new land value tax. It is called a tax shift. It will be the only way.
Squatting usually happens after buildings have been left empty and the hard cases such as someone having a long hospital stay and finding squatters in when they get back home are quite rare. Besides there are apparently criminal remedies for such squatting already before this new law .
Squatting is one symptom of our divided nation. We inordinately favour home owners to the detriment of the propertyless. See this YouTube video where Fred Harrison uses researches from his book Richardo's Law, House Prices and The Great Tax Clawback Scam . He shows that the nest egg that accrues to many homeowners in the equity stake over a lifetime, effectively refunds a huge amount of income and other taxes that the homeowner has paid over the years. This, whilst being a brilliant wheeze for homeowners, blights the lives and social opportunities of renters and tenants. Poverty. A huge imbalance is perpetuated in our society through our failure to face up to this unfairness. We unfairly burden renters with the tax for the services we all use and unfairly allow a protected nest egg (i.e. tax refund) to homeowners. Horrendous for any democrat worthy of the name. We don't even have adequate rent controls - see this UK/Germany.
Howard Davies, a one-time deputy governor of the Bank of England in a article in the Financial Times A wealth tax may work once but don't make it a habit advocates taxing all land values rather than the wealth taxes mentioned by Lib-Dem Nick Clegg. A levy on the location value of all land would address the land utilisation problem that is one root of the squatting problem. If you had a property that you were keeping empty but had to pay a levy on its land value every year you would soon let the building out and the rent payments would cover the new levy. Hey! With every landlord having to rethink about their empty properties, rents might drop so that even poor potential squatters could pay them.
Trouble is there are more homeowner-voters than renter-voters. Homeowners-voters must be given a promise of a drop in income tax to match a new land value tax. It is called a tax shift. It will be the only way.
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