A labour tax
Fred Allen
A labour tax that you could either fulfil or pay someone else to do is a good idea. It solves the problem of getting nothing from the unemployed. The form that labour should take must be left to the taxpayer.
Fred Allen, 13 Shelly Row, Cambridge, CB3 OBP.
Response from Nicholas Albery
I ran a pilot project along these lines several years ago for the hundred residents of a housing co-op in Shepherds Bush. Residents could either pay a L2 'tax' each week or sign up on the circulated worksheet for an average of 20 minutes work on a community project (although unpopular jobs such as fixing the sewers were worth a quicker rate, such as 10 minutes - so residents could work off weeks of tax with one job - with the job coordinator accepting the least 'expensive' bid; conversely, popular jobs such as watering the flowers might be worth a much slower rate - a full 30 minutes might be required to pay off the week's requirement. Residents could also propose jobs needing doing for adding to the worksheet).
'Residents could either pay a L2 'tax' each week or sign up on the circulated worksheet'
The scheme worked well for a time, but needed an element of compulsion (such as eventual loss of one's place on the co-op rehousing list) to prevent residents gradually dropping out as the initial spirit faded.
Obviously such a scheme could be expanded to cover a whole neighbourhood, with the 'labour tax' being a small allocated part of your tax payment to the council, which you could recoup through labour. It would be a way for unemployed people to top up their dole money, whilst at the same time improving the local environment. It would need to be supervised by a neighbourhood committee, working through a jobs coordinator. But the formation of such neighbourhood committees, with a real task to get their teeth into, would be a major positive step forward anyway.
Nicholas Albery, 20 Heber Road, London NW2 6AA (tel 081 208 2853; fax 081 452 6434).
Comment by Vivienne Marks
'Knitting together the community'
I salute the idea of allowing volunteers to 'work off' a proportion of the local tax due from them. Active citizenship means more than an economic contribution to the community. The above proposal applied to local council taxation would lead to: a lowering of local government expenditure; a large number of volunteers; an increasing awareness amongst those volunteers of the satisfaction to be gained from a worthwhile, caring activity, and a consequent knitting together of the community; a decrease in the crime rate; an improvement in the health and well-being of the very old, the very young and many other vulnerable people; an increase in the amount of goods and materials repaired or recycled; and a cleaner, tidier environment.
Vivienne Marks, Little Grove Cottage, Waldron, Heathfield, East Sussex TN21 ORE (tel 043 53 2840).
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