Distressed policy

Donald Simpson (Letters, 12 May) berates the Scottish Government’s policy on collecting public dues from the property owners of empty buildings as being a “tax on distress”.

What an indictment of public revenue raising it is, that property owners in England went to the length of knocking down empty buildings in order to avoid payment on empty buildings.

This is a re-run of the avoidance of the infamous window tax, which simply resulted in people bricking up windows. There is no mention, of course, that they held on to the land on which the buildings stood. This is highly significant.

The key to resolving this problem is in realising that what we think of as a single entity of “property” actually comprises two elements: the bricks and mortar, and the land they stand on.

By removing all taxes on bricks and mortar as well as in the labour taking place within them, we immediately remove the disincentive to constructive use of the properties.

To realise public revenue in an unavoidable manner, all that is necessary is to replace these taxes with a 100 per cent collection of 100 per cent societally created land rental value (LRV).

All taxes lead to avoidance or evasion and/or a reduction in the item being taxed (drastically demonstrated above), but the collection of LRV cannot lead to less land being produced, nor can it be avoided.

At the same time a stimulus to economic activity is attained by getting rid of the primary cause of the distress: tax.

Ron Greer

Blair Atholl

Perthshire