Land Tax,Tourist tax , Plastic tax what's best for Wales?

The Welsh Government is proposing to introduce a vacant land tax aimed at kickstarting regeneration by stopping the hoarding of sites by developers.

Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford will put forward the idea to test new powers that came to the National Assembly following the passing of the Wales Act 2014


Explaining why the vacant land tax had been chosen, Mr Drakeford said: 

“Housing is a priority for the Welsh Government.
A tax on vacant land could prevent the practice of land banking and land not being developed within the expected timescales.
“The Republic of Ireland vacant sites levy provides a useful starting point for how a vacant land tax could work in Wales.
"The existing model in the Republic of Ireland and the relatively narrow focus of the tax make this the most suitable of the four shortlisted ideas to test the Wales Act.”

 The levy, which came into force in January, allows local authorities in Ireland to charge 3% of the market value of vacant sites not developed in 2018, with the rate rising to 7% in 2019.

A Welsh Government spokesman said: 

“This is the very start of the process of developing a new tax.
"The policy objective of a vacant land tax would be to bring idle land into productive use – this could include land which already has permissions associated with it or is within the local development plan, but is not being developed.
"The idea is not primarily focused on revenue raising. Rather, it would focus on incentivising more timely development by making it more expensive to hold on to vacant land, which has been identified as suitable for development.”

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The proposal to tax undeveloped plan has unsurprisingly been described as “absolutely bonkers” by a property consultant.
Stephen Wade, director of property consultancy Legat Owen, said it was “ridiculous” to believe that developers pay for land and then deliberately hold back from developing it.

But Mr Wade said the rate of house building in Wales was already falling behind England and the new tax would only act to deter developers from investing in Wales.
He said:

 “There may be the occasional case where for commercial or market led reasons that a scheme stalls but in most cases it’s down to delays with planning or utility connections. Ask any house builder and they will tell you that utility connections are a nightmare. This is where Welsh Government should be targeting improvements.
“If the Welsh Government are really serious about increasing house building in Wales then they need to start to listen to the people building the houses. This tax won’t help the case it will make it worse by deterring more developers from looking in the first place.”

Plaid Cymru's Rhun ap Iorwerth said it was to early to say whether there was value to the proposed land tax and a tax on disposable plastics was his party's preferred option.
He said Plaid was "not against or in favour" of the land tax.

So criticism of  Mr Iorwerth   for apparently sitting on the fence may be premature.

I don't expect them to say "we will have that", every time the Welsh Government come up with a new preferred  proposal for Tax 

The four shortlisted  proposal are 

• A levy to support social care
• Vacant land tax
• A disposable plastic tax
• Tourism tax

All seem to have argument in favour and against, but  Mr Drakeford claimed  the Irish example and the "relatively narrow focus" of the tax made it the "most suitable" of the four shortlisted ideas to test Wales' ability to introduce new taxes

But it does seem that the Welsh Government  are seeking to find away that sees a new Tax that is not too unpopular by the electorate.

There will be those   who will object to any "Welsh" taxes but I see no problem with any of the proposals, but  we should make sure that.

• It is easily collected and the cost of a bureaucracy to so will not be excessive.
• It changes behaviour.
• It leads to a long term benefit for the Welsh economy.
• It may well see a visible change in Wales.

For that my favourite is A disposable plastic tax, but I am open to argument and so should our AMs.

If we are going to do this it should not be left entirely  to the manipulations of the Labour cabinet in Cardiff Bay.