To think that the mansion tax breaks the principles of taxation

Absolutely. It is an idiotic proposal, like pretty much everything in her latest budget.

No, because moving house is not consumption. The asset remains and is used by whomever purchases it subsequently. It is an exchange of a limited resource which is beneficial for productivity, social mobility and effective allocation of housing stock. Therefore a transaction tax on house purchases is clearly economically damaging and disincentivising a positive behaviour.

Neither is the proposal being made a good one. It muddies the waters because Council Tax should be for local services. Houses don’t consume services. Poll tax was a more sensible system to fund that.

If the Government wants to levy a wealth tax that should be entirely separate and nothing to do with Council Tax. It should also not only apply to housing stock because that is hugely distortive and again an attack on the middle class rather than the wealthy. Note that the upper band for this is £7500 per annum which will apply equally to Buckingham Palace (240 bedrooms) and some other 4 bedroom houses i.e. deliberately designed to affect the truly wealthy very little and to target those who have the majority of their wealth in housing (not the really wealthy). Just like the hammering of those who earn salaries via PAYE while those who run businesses pay far, far lower rates of tax. Just like IHT which again hits middle class professionals and the actually wealthy can avoid almost entirely.

That said, wealth taxes have failed in countries that have tried to introduce them (France, Sweden and others) for numerous reasons. What we should be doing is addressing the disparity between PAYE tax and tax for the self-employed/ capital gains tax etc. Get rid of the pretence that employers pay the employer NI - this is a tax directly on what an employer will pay to employ someone and is a deduction from their salary. If people realised the true amount they are paying compared to what those who invest and have passive income are paying they would not be happy, hence this pretence.

Tax transactions that have a negative economic effect and not those that have a positive one (like people saving into pensions!!). Redirect spending to productive parts of the economy. It’s astonishing, for example, that the Chancellor said not a single word in either of her budgets about increasing education funding significantly if she had any genuine desire to increase growth.

No.

In fact, VAT illustrates the principle quite well. You really don’t want to be levying a transaction tax on things that need to be frequently traded to maximise their social value.

Thats why the VAT paid on all those intermediate parts that go into the coffee machine can be reclaimed through the process. It’s a VAT rather than a sales tax, therefore.

SDLT is a sales tax. Is property something that needs to be frequently traded to maximise its social value? I’d say yes, unless we plan to go to a system where everyone rents routinely for life(like some European countries).

This is the key point. It only makes any sense if the tax is levied on equity, so after valuation they will need to deduct any outstanding mortgage and then apply the tax to the actual value of wealth held in the property.

Is that not like saying if I pay 20% VAT on a 100 quid coffee machine, I should be able to buy as many subsequent coffee machines as I want because I have already paid VAT on 1 ?

When we are looking for the least-bad, I think a property value tax is less bad than SDLT.

Transaction taxes like SDLT are bad becuase they stop people making trades that would benefit everyone.

For example, I’d like to live in a small home near school. I actually live in a large home near someone else’s school.

Extra commute for all involved and unused space. No one benefits, not even the govt, but to fix it by moving for a few years would cost too much in SDLT.

A property value tax doesn’t distort behaviour in that way.

You mentioned fairness: why should someone who moves five times pay five times when someone who doesn’t move pays once? The frequent mover isn’t committing some sin to be punished (the opposite: they are often moving for work, which is a good thing), and is usually not richer either. In fact they are usually younger and therefore less rich on average.

Quote : " That is why Estimated Value × % is weaker and harsher than Actual Profit × %."

When I read that, and you mention profit, It seems to me that you think taxing the rise in value of a property ( the profit ), if fairer ?

Is that what you are saying ?

What is the greater number ? The mansion tax, or the increase in value of a property for the period the tax is due ?

Is England and Wales not under flood alert today ?

All the flood defence work costs a lot of money. This article here says 2.56 billion allocated spending. From feb this year.

Improving the UK's flood defences and resilience through £2.65 billion in funding (openaccessgovernment.org)

Go to June this year, and that allocated spend is up to 7.9 billion.

UK Government Commits £7.9bn to Largest-Ever Flood Defence Programme - Highways Industry

I am not doing accurate costings here, just quick net searches.

The Mansion Tax is projected to raise 400 mil over the same sort of time frame.

Is it not fair that people with more to lose pay a bit more ?

I suppose it can be thought of in the same way as insurance. Pay the government to do the work to reduce the chance of the loss happening. And hey, some " mansions" might even see their insurance costs go down if work is done in their area. It is a certainty that if their "mansion" floods, their premiums will go up.

The principle was broken already when employers NI went up. That meant that employers have had to reduce staffing, make redundancies, reduce part rises for staff and stop hiring. Guess, pay packets got smaller and unemployment has increased.

It was broken again when tax thresholds were frozen. In fact this is the single biggest tax hike ever.

Then there’s taxing peoples homes.

And it just gets worse. Rachel Reeves has blatantly lied to the country and parliament about not increasing taxes on business and when hospitality tax rates have just gone through the roof. And the final straw is the she lied about the £22b black hole, because there isn’t one. She has lied to people to bring in the biggest tax hike ever and told an egregious lie. She should be sacked. But that won’t happen. So the public needs to vote this government out, starting by teaching them a lesson in May.

Yes they could

It’s a shocking tax because it kills aspiration dead. It was actually what drove the recovery from the dark days of the 1970s - the chance to work hard, acquire wealth and do better for your family.

Anyhow this is just the start. It’ll be lowered to £1 million next, dragging in most London houses, many across the South East and some areas of the big cities. More wealth tax than mansion tax.

We shouldn’t be surprised when the Resolution Foundation have taken over the Treasury. Many Londoners hate this as they see themselves being dragged into the net. The same Labour MPs who failed seats will be kicked out at the next election.

Council tax and stamp duty were originally a fee for a service. Council tax should be called a local council services fee and stamp duty should be called a land registry fee.

They were French invaders! To be fair, taxing their own a fair amount as they'd taken all the land.

So can the govt demand 1% of everyone’s bank balance?

I don’t agree with the mansion tax at all.

My house would have to triple or quadruple in value to be anywhere near the mansion tax, so it’s not a problem for me personally.

However, it is just a “fuck the rich” IMO. I do actually know someone who will be subject to it. They are people who started a business about 30 years ago, at huge risk to themselves (home as security). Worked guts out, took risks (that would be unacceptable to me) and finally sold business after decades of slog and sacrifice. Now own a property worth over 2 million and aged almost 60 as a result. All relevant taxes on earnings/sale paid and this home is bought from taxed income.

I just don’t think the govt should be able to essentially do a heist on people like this. Where will it end? Sweeping 1% of everyone’s bank account contents?

Well I'm GenX and I'm staying in my big house. We are the smallest generation, so don't worry, all the boomers will die, and then there will be plenty of free houses and lots of inheritance to buy them (unless the government snaffles it all).

Not really. It's bonkers that lots of boomers live in 4 bed houses with huge gardens and their grandkids, who are working, cant even afford a flat. They need to be encouraged to live in smaller houses.

Companies which own residential properties already have to pay an annual tax on the property that is significantly higher than this new charge. And it kicks in at a much lower value.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/annual-tax-on-enveloped-dwellings-the-basics#what-you-need-to-pay

Why not just put your argument across WHY socialism DOES work?

Socialism worked for me.

Feudalism worked for centuries.

Once again (if you can ?). define "work". Or at the very least what "works" for you.

Did you mean 1500 per month?

Hahaha yeah wouldn’t you like that.