To think an annual property tax is incredibly unfair?

If it means getting rid of stamp duty, then yes, but only then. Stamp duty prevents geographic and social movement.

I think it’s unfair. I own my expensive property outright due to inheritance that was taxed when it was earned, taxed when inherited and then we paid stamp duty so it was taxed when we bought the house. We’ve paid council tax ever since on the banding assigned.

And thank god we do own it outright because I am a student again and DH, the breadwinner, is now so sick he can’t work.

If we had to pay a property tax we would lose our home. Despite paying hundreds of thousands in tax on our own asset already.

The whole thing is crazy but it's a land tax so if they have a lot of land they might be taxed more. I'm in Edinburgh our prices are pretty high, council tax much higher here than in some areas down south. It's going to cost so much to sort it out.

London and the South East already contribute about 45% of all UK income tax so this would be madness from Burnham. Sounds like he is looking to get the nickname Burn Them.

It seems to mean those in the South will pay far more than those in the North even where Southerners have a smaller house and landowners will pay but renters won’t. Are those in the North and renters using roads, rubbish facilities, lighting, libraries, schools etc? Yes, so I don’t see how it’s fair. Way to go to cause division AB!
What about people who have retired, but own a house in the south. How will a 75 year old widow on a pension pay this tax? Will she have to move away from friends and family and go up north and rent? If we are going to incentivise renting like this, where will the rental properties come from? What will this do to rents (rents will rise presumably), will landlords recoup the tax from their renters (yes, so rents will rise further). Do we want rents to rise? I don’t think so…

No it wasnt... at the time I paid the same living in one room in the nurses accommodation whilst being paid a pittance, as those living in huge houses and earning large salaries down the road (Surrey).

Yes SD is separate to a property tax. Yanbu hopefully AB will stick to growing other places rather than this policy.

That does sound fairer than the current council tax system to me - if the intention is to replace council tax. If it’s in addition to council tax it may be unaffordable to a lot of people to stay in the houses they are already in.

The calcs indicate 75% of people (owners of low value property) will pay less and 25% more (owners of high value properties). If you believe them.

Some people might think that this reflects the unfairness of system at the moment.

Housing inequality has been building in this country for 30 years with no government willing to do anything about it. So probably stands to reason that when someone actually tries to its going to piss a few people off.

I think fair play to Burham if he actually does this, but if he does then he will be the first person in 30 years to do something, so I'm not holding my breath. (Reeves made a crap attempt then fluffed it).

I’m wondering about this. I live in an affluent London area in an X council house which cost £1 million the house is too small for the five people living in it but obviously on a National level is expensive. We are surrounded by much more expensive homes. We are probably the cheapest house in our area. There are flats that are cheaper. According to the National office of statistics, the average property sold price in April was 794000 including flats. If everyone here paid .48% of there property price every year the local council would have loads of money for services. There are 85,000 properties in the area at the moment they collect on average 1900- 2000 per year per property, with this new tax it would be almost double 3800 per property on average. Surely this would only exasperate the differences in services between affluent and non affluent areas. Is the idea that this Money would go into a National pot not a local pot?

I don't think people's homes can be treated in the same way we treat other investments. Well that's an entirely different point - we don't tax people on their PPR here but lots of other countries do, we are just not used to it here.

there is a weird belief that homeowners in expensive areas are sat on loads of unearned equity in real terms i.e. profit.

Firstly, that is generally the case; here is how real house prices have changed over the last 20 years according to region;

London: +119% ~+25% to +30% (Massive real wealth gain)
South East / East: +87% ~+5% to +10% (Moderate real wealth gain)
North East: +39% ~ -15% to -20% (Lost value in real terms)

So it is precisely the people in expensive areas who have achieved lots of 'unearned' equity.

Secondly, it doesn't matter if their houses have gone up in real terms or not - they had to be more wealthy to buy it in the first place.

Replace the stamp duty by a yearly tax based on house size. Include all properties, owner occupier, rented out, social housing, etc.
Similarly to income tax, the % increases for larger properties.

People having already paid stamp duty on their property will only pay the new tax if they move.

Don’t change council tax though, we need to still be able to vote on our local authority based on their proposals on how to spend their budget (low CT/less services, pay more/more things available). The fact that high density areas often have a lower CT compensates for the fact that people living there have more pollution and noise and less space.

Hannah Fry did an interesting video about this.

She said that Stamp Duty and other fees are actually contributing to overcrowding, unsuitable living situations and house prices. Basically people with big houses want to downsize but by the time they add in all the costs they actually end up in a worse financial situation so they stay in the house that's too big for them. This then means that there aren't enough big houses to go around for people who want/need a big house.

We'd be paying just over £100 less which seems too good to be true. IME tax changes mean you're rinsed for more money, not less.

Well I just calculated 0.48% of my property value and it's less than this years council tax bill. I know the value because we moved last year. I don't agree with my properties council tax band compared to others in the area.

It is mooted to replace both stamp duty and council tax and to be deferrable until the property is sold.

Yes I think it is fair - far fairer than the current system.

Not up North they didn’t!!

I bought my first house in the Midlands in 1990 for £40k and it languished in negative equity for several years until I sold it in 2002 for £12k more than I’d paid. Meanwhile my DH bought his house for £50k in Bristol in 1995 and sold it for £150k in 2003.

We also made very little on our next house sale (less than 50k after living there and improving the house over a 12 yr period) but have now moved abroad where we could finally afford to buy a house with no mortgage. We’re both retired and living on tiny pensions. Not everyone who’s over 50 is wealthy!

(We both have postgrad degrees but not especially well paid jobs)

Yes agree it's very unfair. We've paid stamp duty, let that be the end of it!

You've said yourself that wages are higher in more expensive areas. That would seem to suggest that supplying services in those areas just taking higher wages into account will be more costly for the councils involved (do they still put London weighting on salaries?).

The SNP promised to get rid of council tax and introduce this many years ago. They make lots of promises they don’t keep though. The Scottish government if they introduced this would keep stamp duty no doubt as it is ludicrously high here and they make so much money from it. And so it would be less fair that the system in England, like pretty much all their tax rules though.