Reeves plan to tax houses over 500k PART TWO

The aging population is a huge issue. Longevity has improved but the oldest are not well and take up lots of NHS resources as well as having state and other pensions for longer

UK debt is massive and the interest payments massive. Roughly £1 trilliion in 2010, £2 trillion by 2020, £2.5 trillion after Covid, now nearly £3 trillion. That is why austerity has impacted on services. Toties were just starting to reduce debt with their cuts but then Brexit happened and debt carries on going up.

Reality, which no one wants to hear

I was also thinking how the hell they are going to make these increased housing taxes palatable to the public when they are paying so much to house people entering the country illegally.

i know the plan is to stop using hotels but I was reading the current case where Epping Forest District Council has had an injunction against the government upheld and some of the rhetoric from the governments barrister was bizarre. It really feels like they have no interest in addressing that situation. Everything seems so geared towards the human rights of people who aren’t or af least werent resident in this country until a few months ago. I can’t see how a tax like this wouldn’t Further deepen divides and cause more instability.

completely agree with you. There needs to be a sensible discussion on how to stabilise the welfare budget. When we take into account that 1 in 4 working age people are not actually working. Plus children and pensioners of course not working, less than 50% of country actually work. Anyone earning under about 50k (well over national average salary of about 38k) is unlikely to be a net contributor. So out of every 10 people in this country there are only 2 who are actually net contributors - that's not a sustainable system.

It's never been normal to have a high % of net contributors though, what has changed is demographics and the fact wages have been stagnated for years.

Wonder how "surprised" they are

UK inflation accelerates to an 18-month high due to surging fuel, food and transport prices.

CPI rose by 3.8% YoY.
Services inflation up 5%.

Under pressure Reeves…..

Quite so.

The November budget will probably see the end of Reeves - as Starmer will knife her.

No amount of waterworks will save her.

Hopefully it will be the beginning of the end for this utterly wretched excuse for a government.

Banish them back to the wilderness for a multiple of 14 years, please.

There will be greener short term pastures even if it’s with a long term plan to come back.

What it will do is influence policy.

Why? Pressure.

Pressure from the markets, from the media, from the electorate, from the constituents, from the back benches, from the WH, from the IMF. Labour have a habit of u-turning, of flip-flopping, of polling the media before trying to introduce new reform.

Yes, because the grass is always greener!

But this should:
13 months of Labour in office. This is what they’ve done to the UK’s 30-year gilt yield. They have done this 3 times in 1 year.

Now remind me what they said about Truss when she did this? Plenty of evidence on X!

Sadly unpopularity won’t get you out of office when you are only a year into governance.

Just over a year after winning the 2024 election, the net approval rating of the Labour government in the United Kingdom is -56 percent.

This is the lowest approval rating for the current government, and is
equal to the rating the Conservative government had just before the 2024 general election.

In August 2025, the net favorability rating for the current British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, is -44 percent, 13 points below the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.

Starmer's popularity has fallen considerably since taking office in July 2024, and as of this month, he was noticeably less popular than the Reform Party leader, Nigel Farage, and Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey

Source: Statista

We encourage our young people to move abroad.

@Marshmallow4545 completely agree with you. There needs to be a sensible discussion on how to stabilise the welfare budget. When we take into account that 1 in 4 working age people are not actually working. Plus children and pensioners of course not working, less than 50% of country actually work. Anyone earning under about 50k (well over national average salary of about 38k) is unlikely to be a net contributor. So out of every 10 people in this country there are only 2 who are actually net contributors - that's not a sustainable system.

There is a sweet spot where reducing taxes doesn't actually reduce overall tax income through a combination of attracting higher earners and big business, allowing smaller businesses to flourish, and people having nore disposable income so spending more which increases VAT income and creates jobs, therefore reducing the welfare demand. People feel happier as less stress about affording their bills and greater drive to improve their job prospects as they will take home more of what they earn. However, our current government are heading the opposite way, stifling both business and state services with the NI increase, and taking us towards an unstable precipice, both economically and politically.

Once they start working on it then it will come in because it will raise more money and any new government will say ‘oh it’s too far along to go back now - it’s all labours fault’

they are killing aspiration in this country - I look at new graduates coming out and struggling to find even minimum wage jobs and wonder how we stop them giving up on themselves. It’s sad

The housing market only moves and grows when everyone has mobility not just one price bracket, this will totally stall the market assuming they stick to £500k all homes valued at £500-800k will start to reduce and fall in value. Anyone living in a home over £500k will stay put for the long term so there will be no stock movement above £500k.

Any new builds will stick, developers won’t be able to sell anything on the estates above 500k it will be a bit of a disaster and we will just have low value cheaper homes being built.

The welfare bill will certainly not be going down if the pressure on middle aged, middle earning people continues to ramp up. Occupational pensions are nothing like they were. Many people like us will end up having to sell, needing to rent again (having rented almost middle age) and claiming housing benefit to cover rent in retirement.

I fully expect this will be our situation too. DP has a degenerative health condition that will impact his mobility in the future. I fully expect to be a full time carer in ten years time. If we are forced out of the house due to spiralling costs rhen guess where we’ll end up? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Yes,but all of this is going to take at least till the end of the decade to implement and Reeves and her cronies will be gone by then.

Im very late to the thread, but im very concerned about the threshold being £500k.

DH and I have a mortgage that runs into our 70s, mid 40s now. We both work really hard to keep up with our mortgage payments, which have vastly increased since our previous fix ended.

DH particularly, has a very stressful job. It is always in the back of my mind that he could have a crash at anytime due to the stress and we would need to sell the house. We do not have wealth. A house to house a family is £500k or more in many areas of the UK, well outside of London and the SE. We have very little equity.

Our retirement ages are after the age my dad developed dementia and before the mortgage is cleared and I cannot see us being able to do it until our late 60s.

It has always been our plan to downsize when the DC leave, but i don't know if they will. My DS1 (i was a young mum) is 27 and nowhere close to being able to house himself.

The welfare bill will certainly not be going down if the pressure on middle aged, middle earning people continues to ramp up. Occupational pensions are nothing like they were. Many people like us will end up having to sell, needing to rent again (having rented almost middle age) and claiming housing benefit to cover rent in retirement.

To me this sounds a decent idea. £500k
feels a bit low but perhaps £700k? It is on the seller, so it prevents extreme rises for no work on the property. And i assume it would be based on a percentage of the value over £700k Trade and sales below 700k really get moving - boosting the economy.

Of course they want them dead. It’s not ridiculous at all. The same contempt is given to the disabled and long term sick. This is what happens when society becomes destabilised and people feel poor. It goes along with compassion fatigue. Hence all the Boomer name calling. We can also lump the Karen name calling in with the misogyny that is absolutely rampant too. All of it is true even if it’s not applicable for you particularly.

Anyhow apparently all of this housing shake up will be introduced in the autumn budget. So let’s sit tight and prepare ourselves to be leaseholders to the great Labour government. What could go wrong.

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast oh my goodness don’t be so ridiculous and over the top, nobody wants pensioner’s dead!! Why can’t it be acknowledged, pensioner’s get benefits? People are living longer, so there are more pensioners, why is this deemed as being offensive to pensioners?

Whenever anyone questions the welfare bill associated with a group in society then some ridiculous poster will always suggest that they want the old/disabled/illegal immigrants dead. The irony of course with pensioners is that most of us hope to be one someday and the vast majority of us will have very much loved parents/grandparents in that age bracket so it's obviously complete hyperbole and nonsense designed to portray sensible discussion and debate as evil and morally reprehensible.

We need to bring the welfare bill down. It isn't enough to keep raising taxes on a population and economy that is already over burdened and struggling. This will be painful and will lead to a worsenment in the quality of life of some people but guess what? Tax rises also massively impact people's lives and ultimately part of being on a society is sharing the pain as well as the good times. Pensioners as a group are some of the wealthiest people on society and it isn't wrong to look at some of their universal benefits and questions if every person of pensionable age needs them. It's common sense and doesn't in anyway mean that people want old people dead.

I like the concepts overall - rewarding hard work and ambition. But the PIP thing - even though a disability is permenant it can change. For example - I have inflammatory arthritis, and despite meds this will gradually cause joint damage so the impact on me with increase over time, and therefore PIP will need reviewing. It also varies day to day, so what the Dr sees when they see me 2 x a year is only a snapshot, so it's hard for them to state its impact on my daily life.

The aging population is a huge issue. Longevity has improved but the oldest are not well and take up lots of NHS resources as well as having state and other pensions for longer

UK debt is massive and the interest payments massive. Roughly £1 trilliion in 2010, £2 trillion by 2020, £2.5 trillion after Covid, now nearly £3 trillion. That is why austerity has impacted on services. Toties were just starting to reduce debt with their cuts but then Brexit happened and debt carries on going up.