Why have people tolerated the housing catastrophe of the last 30 years

Trouble is that local tax offices were closed down, lots of highly experienced tax inspectors made redundant, when they were centralised into a handful of huge regional centres, so there's virtually no "local knowledge" anymore. So, yes, tax "inspectors" (or more likely young inexperienced trainees) are sat "chained" to the desks in huge call centres.

Before that, there were tax offices in every city and large town, and even some smaller towns, where the inspectors lived locally, so had a massive amount of local knowledge, which they put to good use.

I started in accountancy in the 80s, and lots of tax investigations/enquiries were started because one of the local inspectors "observed" something, such as a new shop opening, the van of a new start-up tradesman, or even simply observing the number of customers in a pub or restaurant and making a note to compare against recorded takings at a future random books inspection. We had one local inspector who compiled a list of deaths from the local newspaper, then got the details of the last known addresses from the local undertaker firms and plotted those living in care homes etc over timescales, etc. After a couple of years of tabulating the information he did books inspections of a few local care homes and found that a couple of them weren't declaring all their rooms - if, say, they had 10 rooms, they were only declaring income from 8 or 9 of them - turned out very lucrative for the inspector in terms of undeclared taxes over several years when the owners had to admit what they'd done in the sight of the evidence the tax inspector had accumulated!

It was a massive, massive mistake to get rid of local inspectors working out of local offices.

I’m ours will be roughly the same or slightly lower. The difference if it is lower will be negligible.

Very interesting, thanks.

the distorted housing market contributes to our low growth economy

?
https://whoownsengland.org/2019/01/11/the-holes-in-the-map-englands-unregistered-land/

Also, it's interesting to note that one thing in England has worked phenomenally well these past 10 centuries

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/high-house-prices-inequality-normans

Take house prices. According to the author Kevin Cahill, the main driver behind the absurd expense of owning land and property in Britain is that so much of the nation's land is locked up by a tiny elite. Just 0.3% of the population – 160,000 families – own two thirds of the country. Less than 1% of the population owns 70% of the land, running Britain a close second to Brazil for the title of the country with the most unequal land distribution on Earth.

Much of this can be traced back to 1066. The first act of William the Conqueror, in 1067, was to declare that every acre of land in England now belonged to the monarch. This was unprecedented: Anglo-Saxon England had been a mosaic of landowners. Now there was just one. William then proceeded to parcel much of that land out to those who had fought with him at Hastings. This was the beginning of feudalism; it was also the beginning of the landowning culture that has plagued England – and Britain – ever since.

The dukes and earls who still own so much of the nation's land, and who feature every year on the breathless rich lists, are the beneficiaries of this astonishing land grab. William's 22nd great-granddaughter, who today sits on the throne, is still the legal owner of the whole of England. Even your house, if you've been able to afford one, is technically hers. You're a tenant, and the price of your tenancy is your loyalty to the crown. When the current monarch dies, her son will inherit the crown (another Norman innovation, incidentally, since Anglo-Saxon kings were elected). As Duke of Cornwall, he is the inheritor of land that William gave to Brian of Brittany in 1068, for helping to defeat the English at Hastings.

Haven’t read the full thread but it’s lucky my house is worth £500k+ (in the south) as it seems likely the whole cost will be eaten up pretty quickly, about 4/5 years worth, if I need care and if I don’t they’ll come after me for IHT or whatever is the latest tax for the squeezed middle.

He thinks rightousness is on his side, could be an interesting couple of years?

Any links with more info?

Do not let perfection be the enemy of progress, either.

Maybe.

But too many false dawns for me to get hopeful. He is proposing or at least been linked with a lot of stuff that is going to get a certain demographic really up in arms.

well thank god people's home values have risen....

...because that's what will be paying their care home fees.

It all has to come from somewhere and we are all fucked.

Better to start somewhere than not start at all.

Looking at the infographic about council tax rates and increases in the different local authorities, the main change under Andy Burnham's proposed changes (as I understand them so far) is that London and SE property taxes will rise sharply. I'm in the South, but our council tax is fairly high anyway, so I doubt any increase/decrease would be significant.

About 12% is not on the register and will never be, unless something changes.

That's around about 5 million acres. And (in case you hadn't guessed it), it's mainly owned by the indescribably rich.

Yep, and the guy at the top now seems to want to go after this tax stream?

This

Too many inferences there for me to work out. I guess you may be right - but I don't know which point I'm agreeing to 😂.

The land registry is computerised or getting that way.

In addition the councils know where most of the houses are. They are pretty good at collecting council tax. There may not be a joined up system yet, but it will get there eventually.

You may have (inadvertently 🤔?) addressed your own point with your last words 😀

@SerendipityJane with over 30 million dwellings in existence in the UK, you are going to need quite a few sighted and unchained tax inspectors to physically lay eyes on them all - should you want to tax them of course!

I dont know how anybody affords a house these days. The rise in house prices was just insane.
Im lucky that I was able to buy a house right at the start of the crazy rises. Bought my house in 1999. If Id waited just 6mths I would only have been able to afford a flat....if Id waited a year Id still be renting.

Only if you employ blind tax inspectors who have been chained to their desks.

The house next door to me is there no matter who owns it, where they live, or any other irrelevant details.

Whether or not you want to use that as a basis for taxation is another matter. Generally we (as a society) have made our choice, and have to accept the consequences that flow from that choice.

Sadly @SerendipityJane whilst land and property can't be hidden from the naked eye, they can be hidden from the tax man. It is relatively easy to set up an overseas shell company to wrap a property in.

Hard to hide a house as well, hence double council tax on empty rental etc.?

The only asset that can never be hidden is land.

Something to think about if you wanted to devise an efficient and fair taxation system (not that anyone is).