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"Anything that makes property more expensive increases rents, because it discourages the creation of new housing" Increasing council tax discourages land hoard
by crdoconnor 10y ago
"Anything that makes property more expensive increases rents, because it discourages the creation of new housing"
Increasing council tax discourages land hoarding which would actually free up more land for the creation of new housing.
The supply of housing in the UK is not limited by how much builders want to build. It is limited by availability of land.
Moreover, if coupled with heavy investment in council housing (the only thing in the past that has actually ever meaningfully added supply to the market), that would bring down rents a lot.
- AnthonyMouse 10y agoTaxing land and using the money to subsidize housing construction has the potential to work, but you're probably better off with land value tax (or some entirely unrelated tax) than council tax in that context. The problem with council tax is that if you do the desired thing and build new housing, your taxes go up because now you have more property. You also don't really need the government to operate the buildings. Build them and sell them for cost, or just make it a tax deduction to do construction that increases the number of housing units on a lot. As long as it gets built it doesn't much matter who owns it, and then you don't have the local government in the property maintenance business for no real benefit.