土地增值税：值得转变吗【外文翻译】.doc

中文4080字外 文 翻 译原文：land value tax:worth the transitionland tax:a better wayLand Value Taxation is an annual tax on the market rental value of land.It would be levied as a fixed rate,Muellbauer suggests 0.5% in chaper three.It taxes the given value of the land,not the development that has occurred on it,and does so whether or not the land has been sold.It has,therefore,a number of advantages over other forms of taxation and addresses a number of the concerns raised obove,especially incentives,equity and economic efficiency.As an annual charge on the rental value of the land,LVT would not be a tax on transaction and therefore development.As outlined above,not only would this conflict less with government policy to deliver an increase in the rate of housebuilding,it could actively promote it by providing incentives for local anthorities to encourage development.An annual tax on the market rental value of the land-levied regardless of the land use or development on it-would further promote the re-use of brownfield land because a vacant site would still incur an annual charge.Indeed,some argue it could also promote more sustainable patterns of development by encouraging businesses to locate in less prosperous regions as the market value of land would be lower compared to more prosperous regions(LVT Campaign,2002).LVT also has the benefit of capturing the increase in private wealth that accure through public investment.As an annual fixed rate,revenues would rise as the lands market value（and therefore tax base）increase.In theory,therefore,there it could provide an automatic revenue stream to help fund infrastructure projects.There is the need for some caution,however.Forms of land taxation have been tried before.As Table 1 outlines,there have been four attempts since World War Two.These previous taxes have aimed to capture windfall gains from both the granting of planning permission and also in the case of the Development Land Tax,from development itself.Many reasons have been advanced for their failure.Some complain of their complexity and the fact that none of them were given time to bed-in (Connellan and Lichfield,2000).Others also point to the fact that developers and landowerners often waited for a change of government(usually from Labour to Conservative)as there was widespread opposition amongst this group and within Parliament(Barker,2003).Again,the LVT advocatesargument here is that taxing development is inappropriate.Table 1:Past UK Examples of forms of Land Taxation in the UKTaxLevyYears of operationDevelopment Land Tax100% of the value uplift in land value due to the granting of planning permission.1947-1953Betterment Levy40%,due to rise through time to encourage early sale,again designed to capture value uplift Captial Gains Tax was also introduced in 1967 to capture increases in the esisting use value of land only.1967-1971Development Gains TaxAn interim tax on the captial gains derived from the disposal of land and buildings with development value or potential.1974Development Land TaxTaxed development gain i.e.the difference between the net proceeds after disposal of development and eirher the current use value of land or the cost of land acquisition(whichever was higher).1976-1985Source:adapted from Connellan and Lichfield(2000)Indeed,advocates often point to Denmark and New Zealand as examples where LVT has worked,with both introuducing quite radical schemes in 19th Century.However,both countries have removed their major forms of LVT and retain less radical property taxation(Andelson,2000).Despite these and the UKs setbacks LVT should not necessarily be dismissed.A number of other countries use forms of LVT as part of their fiscal framework-South Afica,some Caribbean states and Western Canada,for example.Slightly different systems operate in Hong Kong and Singapore where all and most land,respectively,is publicy owned and therefore rent flows directly to the state.Radical reform,not sudden reformAll of these arguments point to the need for reform of how property is taxed in Britain. Simply revaluing homes and introducing a Planning-gain supplement will not prevent these problems from recurning.But radical reform does not mean sudden reform,and the political and logistical barriers to LVT make it a distant goal at best.To make LVT achievable,we must plan how to get there.Firstly, the current tinkering should be publicly acknowledged as a stepping stone,not a destination.Simply by announcing in which direction it wishes to travel,the government has the power to focus debate and engage the thoughts and experiences of academics and professionals.It is clear from the previous attempts at land taxation that buliding a cross-party political consensus is also important.Ipprs recent cross-party Commission on Sustainable Development did exactly this,arguing: a land value tax could well be a useful tool for delivering sustainable development,as long as any future reform recognises two fundamental factors.First,new development must be incentived.Second,extra resources are required to meet housing needs within the South East.(South East Commission,2005:55).Secondly,the details of upcoming reform should be designed with a more ambitious goal in mind.Returning to the problems described at the start of this introduction tells us what changes are needed.To create an automatic stabiliser for the housing market,property taxes must respond better to differences over time,between regions,and between properties.Making revaluation an annual process and creating more bands would go some way to achieving this.To capture some of the private profit from public infrastructure investment,the relationship between central and local government will have to be addressed.As already stated above,this perennial issue is unlikely to be resolved with the publication of the Lyons Inquiry.This may actually be a good thing.It seems far more sensible to start from a question of what local government is for,and then how should it be financed,rather than the political fire-fighting that Lyons is engaged with.At a time when local authorities are being encouraged to bring forward housing growth and play a bigger role in economic development,it would seem sensible that they have fiscal mechanisms to enable this.Reassessing the role of equalisation grants and identifying ways local authorities can better capture the gains from development would seem sensible here.The Plannnig-gain Supplement,proposed by Barker(2004)and likely to be adopted by the government,establishes the principle that some increases in value arise from public action,rather than private,and that it is therefore legitimate for it to be used for the public good.This principle must be articulated.PGS should be used as a “wedge issue”,expanding the space in which the idea is accepted(see,for example Akerlof 2005),and making it easier to apply it more widely.The government must therefore base its arguments for a PGS firmly and publicly on principles,rather than the pragmatic need for funds.Finally,in the longer term,a change in the tax system presents an opportunity to iron out the arbitrary jumps in stamp duty.Simply changing “slad”structure,so that higher rates would apply only to the additional pound over a threshold,would impose a considerable cost to the exchequer.Every house over $120000 would pay $1200 less tax,every house over $250000 would pay $6200 less,and over $500000,$11200 less.Attempting to recover this revenue through a new top-rate would prove politically difficult,particularly as Labour has already increased the top rate by three percentage points.A new system entirely,such as LVT,would provide an opportunity to iron out the jumps whilst retaining fiscal neutrality.There does not seem to be the political appetite for significant reform of property taxation.Yet it is clear that property taxation does not currently efficiently or equitably promote government objectives.2005 is an important year in the on-going Lyons Inquiry should not serve to close off debate on more profound reform of property taxation.This is not a call for a revolution in taxation.We are not what Andelson(2000:xix)has termed“whole-hoggers”,we do not believe that LVT is“the sovereign path to social justice”.Rather,there is a role for a LVT within a broader fiscal framework.The chapters that follow offer some positive suggestions.Could land tax workSince Lloyd George,there have been several abortive attempts to tax the windfall gains from planning permission.The standard text on the UK tax system,one of whose authors is now the Governor of the Bank of England,insists that “the underlying intellectual argument for seeking to tax economic rent retains its force”(Kay and King 1990,P.179).Since 1947 ,land value in the UK has depended on its planning status.If a field is zoned for agriculture,it is worth a few thousand pounds per hectare.If it is zoned for business,it may be worth millions of pounds per hectare.Land value taxation is efficient(because it does not distort the incentives to develop land)and equitable(because it returns some of the economic rent to the people who created it,namely the local authority and its electores).As Kay and King explain(p.181):Suppose the award of planning permission increases the value of a plot of land from $5000 to $1 million.Then even if the resulting gain were taxed at 90%,the development would still be better off by almost $100000 using the land for housing than retaining it for agricultural purposes.Substantial incentives to bring projects forward would remain.There are two main objections:the expectation that the would not be permanent,and the costs of assessment.Property interests have always seen off past attempts at land taxation.This happened not only in 1909 and 1914,but also,as Barker(2003,Box 7.3)notes,in 1947,1967,1974,and 1985.On each occasion,they did succeed.The inference to draw is not Barkers inference that land taxation is unfeasible.It is that any tax should be a tax on capital value,not a tax on transactions.The second objection to land value taxation is the difficulty of assessment.This is less of a problem than it seems.The same difficulty faces both business rates and council tax,the two taxes that land value tax would replace (in whole or in part).Both of these taxes are linked to valuations that rapidly go out of date.Council tax bands are determined by housesvalue in 1991.The next Council Tax revaluation in England is due in 2007 and the political flak has already started to fly.A 2005 revaluation in Wales led to more houses moving up than down in relative valuation.This infuriated Welsh taxpayers,but could be robustly regarded as a welcome broadening of the tax base.In the 2005 General Election,the Conservatives promised to delay the 2007 revaluation-a pledge even more irresponsible than the Liberal Democrats short-lived commitment to LVT.The base for Uniform Business Rate is revalued only every five years.The more time that elapses between valuations,the more those whose assets have risen in relative value have an incentive to block revaluation.It was just such a revolt against rating revaluation in the 1980s that led to the poll tax disaster.Enough houses change hands every year that the capital value of every house in the land could be calculated annually.Estate agents do it all the time,in their ordinary business.Therefore there is no reason why a public sector valuer (the existing Valuation service or a successor) could not do the same.Commercial and industrial property changes hands less often,so that annual valuation of every parcel of land may not be feasible.But this is not an insuperable objection.At worst a government could stick with the existing five-yearly revaluation,which could be updated whenever a sale took place.A good deal of detailed work would be required in order to calculate the correct taxation basis when land is leased rather than sold (and any prospect of a land value tax would give owners an incentive to sell leases rather than freeholds).So land value taxation is not an option for tomorrow.But it could be an attractive option for 2009,the centenary year of the Peoples Budget.A National Land and Property Gazetteer is already being constructed,by uniting databases from the Ordnance Survey,the Royal Mail,and local and central government.In principle it can identify every taxable hereditament in the UK.And it is not a snoopers charter,because it contains information only about places,not about people.A third objection,currently politically salient,is that any property tax including land tax penalises the “asset-rich but cash-poor”-who in current debate are characterised as “Devon pensioners”.The first,robust,answer,is that Devon pensioners should face the real opportuninty cost of continuing to live in large houses,and they have options of taking in lodgers or trading down to smaller houses.A softer answer is that the tax liability on a freehold house could be deferred if the householder cannot pay,and become a charge on the estate when the house is sold.Local authorities would be able to borrow against this debt owed to them,and would therefore not be deprived of a cash flow.Source: Dominic Maxwell and Anthony Vigor,2006.“land value tax:worth the transition”.university of oxford.april,pp.5-7,18-20.译文：土地增值税：值得转变吗土地增值税：一个更好的方式土地增值税是在土地市场租赁价格基础上的一种每年必须缴纳的税收，它将按固定比率进行征收，米尔鲍尔在本文第三章中提出该固定比率为0.5%。它根据土地的给定值征税，与它是否已经得到增值无关，与土地是不是已经出售无关。因此，有别于其他税种，许多优势主要体现在它的地理位是否得到许多关注，尤其是否有奖励措施、公平竞争环境与较高的经济效率。作为一种在土地出租价值基础上的每年必须缴纳的税种，土地增值税不会因为它是否转换而得到发展。综上所述，这种是否转换的方式不仅与政府政策没有冲突，而且也不会减慢住宅建筑物的增长比率，它可以通过当地政府提供的奖励来积极地促进它的发展。在市场土地租赁价格基础上的每年必须缴纳的税种，在征收过程中不管土地是否使用或者得到了增值，进而会进一步提高布朗菲尔德土地的再利用价值。因为一个空置的地盘最终仍会带来每年的收入。确实，关于这方面的争论有很多，可能每种争论都会促使形成更多可持续发展的模式，例如通过鼓励经济不是很繁荣地区商业的发展，因为当地的土地市场价格比经济相对较繁荣地区要低。（土地增值税变革，2002）。当个人财富越来越多投资于公共事业时，土地增值税有利于获取其中的投资盈利。土地增值税每年的征收比率是固定的，税收将随着土地市场价格（即征税的基础）的增加而增加。理论上，有关部门可以提供一种自动计算的模式，帮助计算收入中有多少比例的资金流入了国家的基础建设项目。下面有一些值得重视的注意事项,土地增值税形式的改变在很早以前就已经被尝试过,根据表一的大概描述，自第二次世界大战以来共有四次较大的尝试。先前制定的这些税收政策主要是为了取得在纳税筹划允许范围之内获得的收入和土地增值税改革中获得的意外所得，从而来不断完善自身的体系建设,但是许多将导致它们改革失败的原因也在不断增加。许多人抱怨征税体系过于复杂，没有给予他们充足的时间去进一步地了解该体系，进行合适的纳税筹划（康奈利奥、利奇菲尔德，2000）。其他人指出开发商和土地拥有者总是在等待来自政府的机会（从劳动党到保守派），在面对有相当广泛的反对者组成的团体以及国会中的反对势力时（巴克，2003），土地增值税的反对者鼓吹税收政策的改革是不适当的。表格一：过去关于英国土地增值税不同形式的例子税种征收标准运转年份开发土地税在允许筹划范围内按土地增加价值的100%征收。1947-1953地产增值税由于土地处于不断增值的原因，政府鼓励早点出售然后有计划的获得已在1967年被介绍过的价值增加资本税，按增值额的40%征收，从而取得土地增值带来的额外收入。1967-1971发展收益税一个过渡时期的资本收益税，主要来自于土地和建筑物在处置过程中的开发价值或潜在价值。1974开发土地税税收的开发收益与土地在开发过程中的处置收益加上目前的使用价值减去为获得土地支付的费用后的净利润之间存在差异。1976-1985来源:改编自康奈利奥、利奇菲尔德(2000)确实，反对者总是喜欢拿丹麦和新西兰作为例子，因为那里的土地增值税曾经在19世纪已经得到实施并且形成了较彻底的征税方案。但是，目前两个国家却都逐步消除了他们国家土地增值税的主要形式，保留了较少部分的财产税（亨利乔治，2000）。尽管如此，这对英国在土地增值税改革上面临的挫折的影响不会很大，许多其他国家将土地增值税的形式作为他们财政体系的一部分，就像南非、加勒比海的一些州和加拿大西部的大部分地区，香港和新加坡的绝大部分地区在经营体系的建设上与上面几个国家稍微存在一些不同，特别是因为这些国家的土地是公家所有的，所以租金流入就直接进入了国家财政。激进的改革而不是突然的改革所有这些争论都直指是否有必要对英国的财产税进行改革，对房子的重新估价和对收益增加部分的补充说明不会阻止这些问题的再次产生。但是激进的改革并不等同于突然的改革，政策和后勤的保障使土地增值税改革变成了一个遥远的目标，为了达到土地增值税的改革目标，我们必须事先计划好实施的方案。首先，目前的小修小补必须被公开地承认是一个跳板，而不是终极目标。只要把握好它期望达到的大方向，政府部门有能力应对那些来自于学者和专业人士的争辩。从以前在土地增值税上的尝试中可以清楚地看到，建立一个跨党派的政治共识也很重要。公共政策研究所最近的跨党派可持续发展委员会也正是这样认为：土地增值税很可能成为实现可持续发展的有用工具，只要未来的任何改革都承认这两个基本因素：第一，新的改革必须是激励人的；第二，能够满足东南地区住房需求中的额外资源供给。（东南委员会，2005:55）其次，在即将来临的改革的细节设计上，应考虑更加长远的目标，回归到本文介绍开始所述的问题告诉我们什么样的变化才是必要的。要建立一个自动稳定的住房市场，物业税必须更好地满足不同时间、不同的地区和不同物业，制造一个每年重新估价的方法，然后选择最好的方法实现这一目标。为了取得从公共基础建设投资中获得的一些私人利益，中央和地方政府的关系需得到解决。按照前面提到的规定，这个多年来的问题是不可能从里昂调查局的出版物中得到解决，这实际上可能是件好事。这似乎更明智的是从当地政府负责什么问题开始，然后应该怎样融资，而不是从里昂发生的政治灭火事件开始。当一个地方当局正在鼓励提出要在住房增长和经济增长中发挥重要作用时，他们采取的财政机制是非常明智的，重新评估并确定均衡拨款的方式可以更好地反映当地政府的所得看似合理。由巴克（2004）提出的收益增补计划可能会被政府采纳，价值的增加有些来自公共行为，而不是私人行为，确立的那些原则必须是清晰的。收益增补计划应该被当作一个“楔子问题”，扩大这想法被接受的空间，并使其更容易更广泛得被接受。因此政府应该以收益增补计划为基础，贯彻坚定和公正的原则，而不是以资金的实际需要量为基础。最后，从长远来看，税收系统的改变提供了一个消除印花税专制的机会，只要改变“斯拉得”结构，这样高税率就会只适用于超过临界值的额外收益，将不至于给国库强加较大的成本。例如，每一超过120000美元的房子将少交税款1200美元,每一超过250000美元的房子将少交税款6200美元，每一超过50