please empty your brain below
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DG, I enjoy reading all your posts (small villages, buses, misjudged PR etc) but I do love seeing a rant dressed up as news looking silly when exposed to some daylight. Well done!
Tunnel Bore | 25.11.14 - 7:33 a.m. | #
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Has anyone compared the level of this "terrible terrible" mansion tax with the average monthly student loan repayment?
Dan | 25.11.14 - 7:38 a.m. | #
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Nice to see Barking and Dagenham getting top marks in something!
David | Homepage | 25.11.14 - 9:41 a.m. | #
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Personally I'd apply the "mansion tax" to houses worth over £1m, but only for houses that are sold in the future. I.e., it's another tax on buying a house, but at least buyers will know what they're getting into - none of this rubbish about old people in multi-million pound houses.
Then I'd go further, scrap stamp duty and impose it on all houses. It'd be far fairer than a one off payment (that discourages mobility).
| 25.11.14 - 9:44 a.m. | #
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As long as the 'Mansion Tax' limit goes up with inflation. After all, Stamp Duty was introduced as a tax on the rich, now it seems to apply to most people!
Bronchitikat | Homepage | 25.11.14 - 10:19 a.m. | #
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Good post DG, but why bring in a totally new tax, why not just update the Council Tax bands? Sigh.
RogerB | 25.11.14 - 10:31 a.m. | #
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Rather than council tax or mansion tax, Great Britain should move back to Domestic Rates, which they still have in Northern Ireland.
John | 25.11.14 - 11:01 a.m. | #
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Better still, local income tax!
Oh, hang on, no one will ever vote for that because, whilst being far fairer than a property based tax, many middle class people will end up paying much much more... Ah, yes...
Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 25.11.14 - 11:38 a.m. | #
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Income Tax was levied only on owners of the largest of estates, to fund defences in a moment of national peril.
Napoleon was defeated in 1812, more than two centuries ago.
Income Tax has since spread like knotweed and is proving harder to kill than the Terminator was.
'Mansion' tax will spread to us all.
Roehamster | 25.11.14 - 11:43 a.m. | #
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There are 2 possible reasons for the mansion tax -
1 - as per Roehamster, an additional tax that will just keep growing
2 - to drum up so much opposition that nobody will dare to suggest any other land taxes in the future, which is exactly what the rich people who make up/support* the Labour (and Conservative, LD and UKIP) party/ies want.
*I refer to truly supporting, not blind tribal voting here
I support taxes on land in principle as they are on unearned income as long as they replace taxes on earned income £ for £. The mansion tax is not a land tax as it taxes the value of the building as well as the land. Home improvements, which improve the value of a building, are generally earned.
JQ | 25.11.14 - 12:22 p.m. | #
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Crikey, you've woken up the Mail readers now, DG!
Simon | 25.11.14 - 3:21 p.m. | #
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With all due respect to DG, I find it inspiring to see how commentators like Roehamster show us the side which might have been overlooked.
Patrickov | 25.11.14 - 4:53 p.m. | #
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Yet it's surprising the amount of pushback such a modest proposal seems to get. I'm never going to be affected, but yet. It's clearly designed to a populist bash the rich and bash rich Londoners in particular.
Considering how loathed London is in the rest of the country, you might think there are no downsides. But Labour wants to use it to raise £2 billion for the NHS, except to do that the threshold would have to be nearer £1.25 million. Still no much worry for me, but does have to have greater traction in London.
Of course considering Labour don't want to make anymore cuts they will need more tax revenue, how low will the threshold actually fall.
Rational Plan | 25.11.14 - 5:12 p.m. | #
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"Stamp Duty was introduced as a tax on the rich"? Who said that? Ad valorem stamp duty on transfers of land was introduced in 1808!
Andrew | 25.11.14 - 5:15 p.m. | #
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Added to which, there are relatively few poor people who own houses worth £2m, or indeed £1m.
Andrew | 25.11.14 - 5:15 p.m. | #
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"Added to which, there are relatively few poor people who own houses worth £2m, or indeed £1m."
Problem is, if you're rich enough to be able to afford a £2m house, you're probably also rich enough to hire an accountant to 'minimise your tax exposure'. Aren't a lot of them owned by blue chip companies as well?
Graham | 26.11.14 - 10:14 p.m. | #
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My parents are in the category of people who are certainly asset rich and cash poor. They're living in a fairly standard Victorian terraced house (not a mansion) worth a bit over £2m that was worth in the tens of thousands when they bought it 30 odd years ago. They're both now at state pension age (but still working). They got really screwed over by the equitable life situation and lost a good portion of their pensions throught that.
So, their house was a pretty good investment, but I don't really see why they should be punished for that. All this will do is force them and the few remaining long time owners in the area to sell their houses to someone rich enough to afford the tax, and make the area become even more of a banker haven it already is.
I'm all for taxing the rich more, but I'd do this via stamp duty and income tax.
Ed | 27.11.14 - 8:08 a.m. | #
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Just because the Mansion Tax affects only a few people doesn't make it any more "fair" (a word that means different things to different people these days, but I would hope that everyone would agree that being forced out of a home you thought you had already paid for out of your - taxed - income is unfair). It is still a stupid and ill thought out idea.
tintinhaddock | 27.11.14 - 9:04 a.m. | #
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From what I recall, there is no intention in the Mansion Tax to force people out of their homes. The payment would be deferrable until the house is sold.
Sorted.
Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 27.11.14 - 9:59 a.m. | #
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Andrew: but that still means that for every month/year you stay in your 'mansion' after the tax comes in, you have to pay more when you sell it, hence devaluing the property the longer you stay in it (for the incumbent owners). Sure, you won't be forced into poverty by staying in your house, but you will be ultimately worse off for doing so.
Ed | 27.11.14 - 8:06 p.m. | #
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£3000 a year isn't much more than my rent's just gone up.
I think these people will cope.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 27.11.14 - 8:16 p.m. | #
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If it's £3,000 then the tax will raise just £300m - take off costs to administer and factor in some non-payment, it's hardly worth it. No, it'll be much more than £3,000 and will expand to include many more homes.
tintinhaddock | 28.11.14 - 7:22 a.m. | #
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Factor in the dip in value at that end of the market - and the resulting loss of stamp duty revenue - it could end up making very little indeed. But I suspect this is just an envy tax, they don't care how much it raises, they just want to bash "the rich".
tintinhaddock | 28.11.14 - 7:27 a.m. | #
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