Today's Guardian carries a nice enough piece by Simon Jenkins in praise of devolution and localizing taxation, in particular through "ability to pay" local income tax. Clearly Daahling has yesterday set the scene for another big spat about Council Tax as it seems that the local government settlement is going to leave little option but for local authorities to raise the hated tax by more than they otherwise would.

Of course I think Jenkins, and the Lib Dems, are wrong on LIT - and are certainly wrong on removing all forms of property tax - but we in ALTER are prepared to accept LIT I think now on the proviso that we replace some other tax with a land tax at a national level (preferably a whopper like income tax for me!). Anyway - here's a taste of the Jenkins article (of course he's also wrong that it was a Tory script Daahling was cribbing from but don't let that get in the way of an otherwise good article!):

It was a Tory tax proposal that rewrote Darling's script:

The way forward can only be the European way, to devolve a major slice of spending on public services back to where it was before the mid-1980s, to local authorities. There it must be covered by some element of ability to pay - as bravely proposed by the Liberal Democrats. Darling cannot go on financing central programmes with above-inflation rises in a partly regressive property tax. There is no alternative, one day, to some form of local income tax. Council tax could be cut by a quarter with roughly one pence on income tax. Scotland is even now contemplating such a proposal. Yet ask Brown or Cameron for a view on such fiscal devolution, and they will look as if you wanted to murder their cat.

Giving taxpayers some scope to determine the level and quality of their public services is the only way to sustain future rises in public expenditure. That scope can come only through the local ballot, over health, police, education or whatever. Local income-related taxes exist in almost every country in Europe. They are intelligent taxation. Only in Britain do they scare party leaders witless.