<b>Chancellor Gordon Brown&amp;’s 2003 Budget contained plenty of good news for housebuilders</b><br><b>At almost every conference I address, I am asked if I think the Chancellor will impose VAT on new homes. My answer, now well rehearsed, is always the same.</b><br><b>While it would be unwise to assume VAT is off the Treasury agenda for good, it seems highly unlikely. I have two reasons for my heroic optimism.</b><br><b>First, the argument against VAT is very powerful. It is not just the damage it would do to the industry, but VAT would undermine achievement of many of the government&amp;’s key housing and planning policy objectives. To give just one example, if the Treasury were to capture a large share of land values through VAT, the government would have to scale back drastically its aspirations for planning gain and affordable housing. In effect VAT would bring large gains for the Treasury at the expense of local authorities.</b><br><b><b>moment passed</b></b><br> My second reason is one of timing. If the chancellor had wanted to introduce VAT, the ideal time would have been 2001. His Budget, which followed the Rogers Taskforce Report in 1999 and Urban White Paper in 2000, introduced a range of housing measures. At the time …