This may be the last issue of ALTER's newsletter Landscape that is offered as a free download to ALTER members.

To ensure that you continue to receive Landscape, if you are not already a paid-up ALTER member go to the Join Us page on our website. We are about to move to a new site, where membership benefits such as Landscape may be password protected.

With the cost of our main activity (attending Lib Dem Conference) going up in recent years, we are likely to increase our subs at the AGM in March. So join now.

Many ALTER members support Monetary Reform. Many others see Resource Economics are linked to Land Economics - where 'land' in the economic sense = 'natural resources'.

Chris Glover is the ALTER committee member working on CEJ's plans. You can email him if you are keen to be involved in the planning and publicising of this event.

ALTER now has a Group in ACT, where you can join discussion on topical subjects. We have already recruited new ALTER members this way, in less than a week since creating the Group. So please tell your friends about ALTER in ACT.

The discussion in the ALTER ACT group this week has been about the re-launch of Mansion Tax, which we analysed in a recent post here.

See http://smarttaxes.org/2009/10/11/site-value-tax-in-programme-for-government/

It is notable that it was the presence of the Green Party in the Irish Coalition government (elected by Singe Transferable Vote of course!) which seems to have persuaded Fianna Fail to adopt the Green Tax Switch which British Lib Dems only adopted as policy in a half-baked manner.

This measure will cover all non-agricultural land. The technical and political implications for us, this side of the Irish Sea, are immense: we still have very similar legal, institutional and cultural norms as Ireland, so many of the questions asked of ALTER by sceptics here will need answering by liberal-leaning politicians over there.

ALTER will be investigating whether we can help the Irish Government. The whole British LVT Movement needs to step up several gears!

I have often said that LVT is one of those policies that Governments seem afraid of - until all else has failed and they find themselves staring into an economic abyss. That is the Irish situation now: their house price crash and national indebtedness are far more severe than ours in Britain. Until now they have had no domestic property tax, consequently the shift of wealth away from productive enterprise into the 'bubble' of land values has almost strangled sustainable growth prospects.

To order a copy (£5.50 inc. p&p) view the Book flyer.doc

ALTER urged Vince (and the whole TC) to see LVT as a national (not local) tax, from the start. We suggested a low initial rate, exemption for low value (per hectare) land and sliding-scale tax-free "Homestead Allowance" (HA) for owner-occupiers. We said that if the HA is too high (i.e. above around £0.5m) it would not raise enough revenue to make the initial cost worthwhile. In the long term, LVT could be administered from within the income tax and corporation tax systems, as in Sweden with their property tax.

We also asked for local councils to be given the choice, from the start, to precept into the land-value tax base, as well as (or instead of) the income tax base. A motion "Choice for Local Revenue Raising" (drafted by ALTER) had been passed overwhelmingly at the 1999 Party Conference.

These ideas were put to the TC in Feb 06. However Vince and his Nuffield College Oxford colleague Professor Iain McLean (a witness called by the TC) expressed preference for local SVR, not national LVT. There was quite strong support for a mix of "progressive property tax" (moving quickly to a land-value base) and LIT for councils. But the TC could not agree.

Other rows (notably over dropping the 50% top rate income tax) loomed, so it was decided by the Federal Policy Committee (FPC), which directs all policy making, to defer detailed discussion of property tax until Year 2 of the TC. The Tax Policy Paper Fairer Simpler Greener which was debated at Sep 06 Conference contained a general discussion (very positive) about the role of LVT and other forms of economic rent as revenue. The Motion itself called for TC to "develop policies on land tax" in the following year. It reaffirmed SVR for commercial land. Needless to say, LIT was reaffirmed.

Fast forward to Jan 07, TC convened saw less of Vince and ALTER President Chris Huhne. Vince's "high value property tax" (=Mansion Tax) was formally proposed - but discussion was deferred to March, to allow the easier non-property bits of tax policy carried over from 2006 to be resolved.

At its Feb 07 meeting, for the sake of argument I agreed to look at reform of business rates as though we were not going to have a domestic property tax in the first Parliament. We easily agreed a more detailed set of proposals on SVR for commercial land, which included "national land valuation of urban areas". We'd achieve full SVR (i.e. scrap Business Rates) within one Parliament.

My speech in the 2007 Spring Conference debate on Regeneration set out the case for retaining a significant element of national property tax. ALTER prepared a detailed set of proposals on domestic LVT for the TC's March meeting, supposed to be all about domestic property taxes. They included enabling legislation in a first Parliament for LVT on all urban land. But the TC chair took it that domestic LVT longer needed to be discussed - since we'd agreed (in Feb) not to have it! I protested that the "agreement" was for the sake of argument then only. However a vote of those present for "next business" was won 7-1, with the result that no further discussion by TC of any LVT proposals for domestic property took place.

However Vince's Mansion Tax was approved, by a small majority, although I voted against.

Probably because many MPs were nervous - and they tend to vote in FPC en bloc - the Mansion Tax was dropped before the final draft of the Year 2 TC paper was published. ALTER submitted a Minority Report to the crucial FPC meeting.

In the Sep 07 Policy debate on Reducing the Burden, ALTER failed to get an amendment on domestic LVT onto the agenda - or even to have separate vote on the relevant lines in FPC's Motion.

Since then, with the Credit Crunch entirely changing the economic environment, we tried last autumn and again in March to get LVT back on the agenda at Conference "for the shorter term".

Vince's Mansion Tax speech came out of the blue, to ALTER as much as anyone. We are aware that FPC is still divided over those wanting to keep LIT and those wanting more "Green Tax Switch" - mainly to lift more out of income tax altogether.

It may that the desire uniting these factions - for the scrapping of tuition fees (unaffordable by Vince's calculation) - could persuade FPC to use a national LVT as a means of raising extra revenue. But it would be a bad idea to introduce LVT as a tax on top of other taxes, rather than a replacement.

For more views on Mansion Tax and LVT, by FT Journalist Martin Wolf on Sept 25th and in subsequent letters by Carol Wilcox and Jack Bovill on Oct 1st

The Coop Party does not fight against Labour but sponsors about 30 Parliamentary candidates, mainly in quite safe Labour seats. One of ten bullet points in a summary of its policies for "changing the way we do business" for the 2010 election is:-

"Land Reform - As we seek to bring stability to the financial system, it is only right that we aim to do the same for the property markets. A key policy concern for the future has to be to keep growth in house prices consistent with other parts of the economy. We should use taxa­tion to change incentives within the property market, ensuring that we incentivise the produc­tive use of land rather than expected capital gains in an upward market."

In more detail on page 17 of the manifesto, it says:-

The subject is a book sub-titled "An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions" - written in 1879 but condensed and 'translated' into modern (American) English by the late Bob Drake: Progress and Poverty.

For details of how to register (places are limited) see the website of the charitable foundation named after the author.

ALTER does not run educational courses. We work with the Henry George Foundation, an educational charity to which many of our members belong. It publishes a quarterly journal Land & Liberty, free to its members.

We would have preferred a win for LVT of course, since we exist primarily to promote classical Liberal ideas on "Rent as Revenue" ("Tax Wealth not Earnings" is a motto of ours). However it is no surprise that most people - even Liberal Democrats - see Income Tax as either more fair or more important in revenue-raising terms (or both).

95 votes were cast at our stand in Bournemouth, a few more online after our announcement about this on the eve of Conference. The election was by Fair Votes (STV to those who appreciate the finer points of PR) and "first preferences" were as follows:

Income Tax (including Local Income Tax) - 39

Land Value Tax (inc. Site Value Rating) - 30

Capital Gains Tax - 11

Council Tax - 5

the rest - 9

Most people voted before talking to us, so there should not have been much influencing of the result.

We are sending a free copy of our new book The Case for a New Peoples Budget to the winner of the draw from among those who voted "correctly" (i.e. top three preferences as above): Paul D Smith of Enfield.

"in the long term, the local income tax could be replaced by a new property-based tax to take account of rising land values".

ALTER would like to see such a tax introduced sooner than the "20 years" which Vince Cable talked about. We would also like to see it as a national tax first, with councils being allowed to choose from Land and Income tax bases.

Liberal Democrats in 2010 are in Government, over 100 years after the last Liberal Budget. Vince is Chancellor, in a coalition led by a greatly reduced Labour Parliamentary Party. He has to produce a Budget that will restore the economy of Britain but ensure stability over the long term, boost the 'green economy' and not hurt the poor.

He has several tax instruments. Which will he choose?

Surely he''ll use Land Value Taxation, reduce the overall burden of income tax - especially on the lower paid - even more than the Party Manifesto promised. Will he really abandon domestic property taxes altogether?

The Ballot Paper for ALTER's "Tax Election" has 8 of the major forms of taxation that might be used in Vince's Budget. You have to choose the three which will be most important, i.e. will raise the most revenue by the end of a 5-year Parliament.

The Count will help Vince decide.

ALTER will give a free copy of The Case for a New Peoples Budget to the first ballot, drawn from a 'hat', which matches the 'winning' Top Three Taxes combination.

Visit Stand 130 at the Exhibition to collect your ballot paper. Votes received electronically will not count!

The book is priced at only £5 (5p a page!) and has a Foreword by Vince Cable MP, one of ALTER's distinguished Vice Presidents. It can be bought from ALTER's stand (no.130) at the Exhibition in the main conference centre.

Venue: Wessex Hotel (Purbeck Suite) Time: 1pm (5 mins walk from Conference Centre)

Chair: Giles Wilkes, Chief Economist, CentreForum (centre-left think-tank).

The book, which is soon to be made available as an audio download, reflects on a century of failed attempts to put Land Value Taxation (LVT) on the Statute Book in Britain, since Lloyd George's time. It takes the form of a potted account of the saga of the first Peoples Budget, followed by 6 subject essays by ALTER members (plus a 'guest' contribution from Scottish farmer Duncan Pickard). It concludes with two chapters by ALTER Chair Tony Vickers: the first "This is how we do it" is on practical LVT politics for today's Liberal Parliamentarians; the second a look into the next century, drawing on recent research on A Liberal Theory of Natural Resource Property Rights, applying LVT principles to all of Nature.

To order the book, send a cheque for £5.50 (per copy) to Catherine Hodgkinson, 51 Demesne Furze, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7XG. Orders of five copies or more are postage free.

At the meeting, our new Hon Sec, Dr David Cooper, passed Vince a draft of his paper on the Social Justice Argument for Domestic Property Tax.

The paper as published was passed to Guardian journalist Ashley Seager last week and is likely to feature in an article in that paper on Monday, according to David. He has asked me to make it available here.

Ashley Seager has been invited to speak at ALTER's Fringe at the Bournemouth Party Conference, on Sunday 20th September 1pm in the Wessex Hotel. Chris Huhne MP, ALTER's Hon President is the main speaker. At this event, we are launching a book of essays to commemorate the centenary of The Peoples Budget of 1909. The foreword to the book is by Vince Cable.