Developing new Welsh taxes

Wales needs more housing. Sometimes, land identified as suitable for building is not built on, or is not built on as quickly as needed. This idea will explore whether a new tax to increase the cost of holding vacant land could encourage the building of new homes and increase commercial development.

We will work with people who own or develop land, house builders, local planning authorities, housing associations, and the third sector to ensure the new tax would help build the houses and commercial buildings we need.

Wales has a growing number of older people. We need to consider new and innovative ways of providing social care in the future.

We will explore various options for how we contribute towards paying for the care that we may need later in life. Professor Gerald Holtham's report 'Paying for social care' explores his idea of a levy to fund social care in Wales.

This idea considers if a tax could change behaviour towards disposable plastic and a range of options will be explored.

The summary of findings to the consultation on the policy design for the UK-wide plastic packaging tax was published in November 2020. We continue to work with the UK government on the implementation arrangements in readiness for introduction in 2022.

We are exploring a Welsh tax on disposable single use cups to reduce their use, encourage re-use, and reduce the litter they can create.

We are consulting on giving local authorities the power to introduce a visitor levy. This would be a small charge paid by people staying overnight in commercially-let accommodation in Wales.

The levy would raise new money for local communities which would be re-invested in local areas and help keep Wales beautiful for generations to come.