Land extra cash

IT comes as no surprise to read that tax evasion is threatening to derail flagship Budget policy (your report, 27 March). Any increase in, or impost on, economic activity only stimulates one area of business: the tax-evasion industry. People only reduce their labour, or try to conceal it, in the face of income tax increases. There can be very few instances where an increase in tax leads to an upsurge in productive activity.

What is required, in these dire recessionary times, is a form of public revenue raising which is unavoidable, progressive and stimulates economic activity.

Luckily, there is such a method of achieving this. It is called land rental value collection. Often wrongly called land value tax, it is actually the antithesis of tax, being based on the rental value of unimproved land, but not the buildings or economic activity upon it. Rent then replaces tax.

Taxation frequently depresses work, but there is no way the collection of land rent can cause less land to be produced and no tax evasion specialist could ever put Bearsden or Belgravia into an offshore account. We cannot tax our way out of a recession, but we may just be able to "rent" our way out.

RON GREER

Armoury House

Blair Atholl, Perthshire