New Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai has stat­ed very clear­ly that the Gov­ern­ment must bring back the land tax. He al­so stat­ed it is their in­ten­tion to re­peal the ex­ist­ing act and re-es­tab­lish the prop­er­ty tax at the pre­vi­ous lev­els. While I agree with what he is say­ing, I have learned to take what is said with a pinch of salt.

By this I mean that I am cer­tain we have not been giv­en the whole sto­ry. So be­fore we hear that it will be re­in­stat­ed at the pre­vi­ous lev­els (for a short pe­ri­od of time) be­fore it is in­creased, I would like to pro­pose that any in­creas­es be done in a fair man­ner with as lit­tle cost to the Gov­ern­ment as pos­si­ble for re­view­ing and col­lect­ing the tax­es.

My pro­pos­al for achiev­ing this is quite sim­ple and self-reg­u­lat­ing. Re­in­state the tax­es as they were. No one can com­plain about this, as they would have al­ready been pay­ing tax­es at this lev­el. Tax­es should change when a prop­er­ty changes hands. The same way that stamp du­ty is as­sessed at this time, so too should the land tax. Both are based on the val­ue of the prop­er­ty and re­quire no ad­di­tion­al man­pow­er to place val­ues on prop­er­ties.

There are sev­er­al ben­e­fits to be de­rived from this method. First­ly, a home­own­er is not made to pay a high­er tax for up­grad­ing and tak­ing prop­er care of his prop­er­ty. He is al­ready pay­ing tax­es on his earn­ings and should be able to choose to live in com­fort with­out fur­ther tax­a­tion.

Sec­ond­ly, if the tax­es can be de­ter­mined be­fore the prop­er­ty changes hands, then the new own­er can fac­tor that in­to his cost of own­er­ship and be se­cure in know­ing there are no sur­pris­es ahead.

Third­ly, the tax sys­tem will reg­u­late it­self in that when re­al-es­tate prices are in­creas­ing and prop­er­ties are chang­ing hands, the tax­es would in­crease. Like­wise, when the econ­o­my is in a re­ces­sion and peo­ple have to sell, the tax­es would fall to re­flect the cur­rent mar­ket val­ue of the prop­er­ty.

Fourth­ly, if peo­ple re­main where they are, then their tax­es re­main as they are, even though the mar­ket may be up or down. This would help build com­mu­ni­ties that stay to­geth­er and like­ly know one an­oth­er. This would mean they would tend to look out for each oth­er be­cause they be­long to a long-stand­ing com­mu­ni­ty. The re­sult: less crime and more par­tic­i­pa­tion in com­mu­ni­ty projects.

Some thought would have to be put in­to how the change of prop­er­ties be­long­ing to com­pa­nies would be han­dled, along with in­her­it­ed prop­er­ties, but it is a start­ing point for a work­able so­lu­tion to the tax prob­lem. No change in tax un­less there is a change in own­er­ship. Fair and sim­ple.

Bernard Ques­nel

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