Now Labour is plotting to slap a tax on your garden

JEREMY Corbyn is preparing to hit households with a new “garden tax” which could treble average council tax bills across the UK.

The proposal, hidden in the small print of Labour’s manifesto, would hit pensioners hardest and could force people to sell off lawns and yards to avoid spiralling bills.

It could also put many people into negative equity with their mortgages.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has claimed a Labour government would not add more taxes to people earning below £80,000.

However, concerns have been raised after analysis of plans to introduce a Land Value Tax (LVT) – dubbed the garden tax – which eventually will be based on three per cent of the value of land for each property.

It would result in a yearly tax bill of £3,837 for an average family home in England – a massive 224 per cent increase on the current average council tax bill of £1,185.

However, in some areas the increase could be much higher based on current values and council tax levels.

In Westminster, the tax would rise a massive 2,300 per cent to £17,413 at the highest end. The analysis, commissioned by the Conservatives, also reveals in Birmingham the increase would be 320 per cent to an average of £2,726 and a 338 per cent hike to £2,614 in Manchester.

One of the poorest council areas of England – Barking and Dagenham – would see hard-pressed families faced with an average bill increase of more than 500 per cent to £4,579 a year.

The LVT plans are also in the Lib Dem and Green manifestos leading to new fears of “a coalition of chaos” forcing huge tax hikes across the UK.

Labour’s Land Campaign policy paper suggests introducing LVT gradually at first, charging 0.85 per cent on the value of homes in replacement for the council tax.

However, it would rush in a three per cent rate on estates, privately rented properties, new build homes and holiday homes. Labour would then work to bring the maximum rate on all homes across the UK.

The policy paper notes: “It is envisaged, therefore, that as the economy adjusted to the new LVT regime during a transition period of, say, 10-20 years, the initial concessionary rates of LVT [on owner-occupied homes] would be raised gradually to the standard rate of 3 per cent.”

The respected think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research branded the Land Value Tax a “tax on gardens”. It warned of a return to “garden grabbing” by developers as people sold off land to reduce their council tax bills.

A study of the LVT by Labour, the Lib Dems and Greens on Oxfordshire County Council said people with gardens will be forced to pay more.

The report said: “Normally, the winners are those plots that have little or no garden and the losers are those where houses stand in large grounds and where maximum development is permitted by the planning regime.”

The proposals also flag up a tax raid on farmers who are currently exempt from council tax but could be forced to pay £6billion – putting many of them out of business.

The NFU has warned the new Countryside Tax “would simply increase the cost of UK food production with no benefit for shoppers”.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said: “Jeremy Corbyn needs to hit ordinary working families with a bombshell of new taxes to pay for his reckless hard-Left giveaways.

“This lays bare the price we would all have to pay.

“Corbyn’s garden tax will send tax bills soaring, house prices plummeting, plunge people into negative equity and force families to build over their back gardens.”

He went on: “This nonsensical policy sums up how Jeremy Corbyn, along with his SNP, Lib Dem and Green comrades in the coalition of chaos would bring misery to every single family in Britain.”