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Max Clark's avatar

i don't know much of the history of this. from wikipedia, it sounds like the budget did pass and that it established a 20% land value tax along with an income tax. is that correct? what happened with the vancouver single tax system? thanks again for compiling all this.

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Darren Iversen's avatar

20% LVT - no such luck, but they did get a national land valuation, which is step 1 towards a full LVT. Lloyd George - the central character here - felt that the valuation was especially feared because it would reveal so much tax evasion that landlordism would not survive. I don't know what happened in Canada - it must have been rolled back after WW1, as it was so decisively in the UK. I'm presenting raw history because the interpreted history of the period is a memory hole - it hardly mentions this land campaign, its impact, and the philosophy behind it - the roots in Henry George, JS Mill and Adam Smith, and the belief that unemployment could be abolished. Until I read Land Values 1909-1914, I had no inkling how many times Henry George was mentioned in parliamentary debate.

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Max Clark's avatar

ah, i see now that i misread. it was a total land valuation plus a "20% tax on increases in value when land changed hands" (from the wikipedia article on the People's Budget).

i appreciate this raw history very much. i was just skipping ahead to the ending! haha.

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