AIBU to think a £2m homeowner should pay mansion tax?

Mmmmm I can confirm I would be better off, if I paid for what I used. I don’t need you to test it for me.

Fortunately, this isn’t a communist state so I’m free to disagree with you and you have zero remit to tell me what I can and can’t believe. And again, I have never referred to a “thieving government” or taxes being “stolen”.
I have merely questioned the fairness of my paying an additional tax on top of the vast whack of tax I already paid, for the simple privilege of being able to buy my home. Whether you like it or not, that isn’t unreasonable.
And I agree, we need a far better system. I just do not agree that increasing taxes on an ever decreasing segment of the population is the way to achieve that.

I’d quite like to test that as your house no longer had running water or sewage disposal, the road outside crumbled, children roamed the streets because there were no schools. You wouldn’t get treated if you needed A&E. If you were inevitably burgled in the chaos there would be no police to attend or prisons on the off chance the offender was somehow apprehended by some unknown entity.

It all sounds positively utopian.

Everyone benefits exactly!!! It's not money that's being taken away from you by a thieving government.
I don't know what bias you are talking about? I own a home (or rather I am slowly paying back a massive mortgage on a home) and pay a lot in taxes also. I do not like paying taxes, however I also don't think I am being stolen from when I pay them.
I can also recognise, having struggled to get on the property ladder, the issues that constantly increasing house prices have. In particular parts of London will empty out if young families can no longer buy or rent homes there (in the way that the gentleman in the article was able to do so in the 60s). I'm a millennial, but it's even harder for generation Z and even if they work just as hard as you, or me, or the old man in the article did, it will be much harder for them to achieve home security because of the rise in property prices.
In addition, taxes may need to increase because we will need to spend more on our military and an aging population. Putting the tax burden solely on income tax reduces productivity and penalises the younger generations who need to save to get on the housing ladder but are hit with a double whammy of high property prices and more of their income going on tax. Younger low earners can't afford to rent or buy. Younger high earners are forced to shoulder the tax burden. Higher property values also discourage alternative investment in businesses/stocks/shares which further lowers productivity.
There are other ways to raise tax than income alone. And a land value tax (not council tax which as said before is not based on the values of homes) would be a fairer way of doing it. It might also have some positive side effects of discouraging land as an investment and slowing house price inflation. You can disagree with it. But you can't paint it as politics of envy/some radical left wing position. Even Milton Friend man wanted land tax and he was not a socialist fire brand. The mansion tax isn't a land value tax, but it goes a small way towards making the system better.

Really??? I mean really? This is so simplistic.

If it all stopped tomorrow, the wealthy would be fine. In fact if it stopped tomorrow I would be a lot better off 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.

The proposed mansion tax would only be £2.5k?! Fucking hell. this man is in a £2m house and claims he can’t afford £2.5k? Fuck off. He’s having you all for thickos 😂

Really??? I mean really? This is so simplistic.

If it all stopped tomorrow, the wealthy would be fine. In fact if it stopped tomorrow I would be a lot better off 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.

I agree with this but it would be politically very difficult. People that DO live in the UK often have investments in London themselves and they would want house prices to continue rising. Maybe the man in the article doesn't care about that he just wants a home to live, but plenty of people do want their 2 million to keep growing. That includes some politicians, political figures, newspaper owners media magnates. So the backlash against it would be much angrier than the backlash against the mansion tax we are discussing here. And, of course, there are plenty of British political figures (Oakshot or Dyson) who themselves live abroad in Dubai etc but own properties here. Would there be an exception for British citizens who aren't resident?

This is simply untrue. We bought our house as our forever home with a plan to stay here very long term. Rises and falls in the housing market are NOT the issue with the mansion tax, for me at least. My issue is, I’ve paid the huge amount of tax required, simply for the privilege of being able to buy my home.
But now so many people seem to feel entitled to say….well, if you can afford that, we want more of your money? Why do they feel entitled to it? Why do they feel entitled to say to a stranger, whom they do not know, I want your cash, simply because they perceive I have more than they do? Do they know what it took to earn it? Do they want to take some of the risk, throw some of their money in and take the risk of losing it? No they don’t.

As someone who did not grow up with any kind of privilege, who has been given nothing, who has worked for every single thing I own, and who already pays vast sums of tax, it is an attitude I do not understand.
I wholeheartedly agree that the most vulnerable in society need and absolutely deserve support, but I’m already doing that, via high taxes and a whole host of other measures. The inefficiency in how that money is spent is another issue.
I have been on the bones of my arse, utterly, utterly skint and never once did I look at someone with “more” and think…..they should give what they have to me.

It's weird though because everyone on Mumsnet is a net contributer so you'd think statistically it wouldn't be a problem. It's a conundrum

If you don't like the thought that home/property owners benefit more from public services, maybe a better way of thinking about it is that they have more to lose if it all stopped tomorrow?

The average UK house price in 1960 was £2,263.
That man's house was 6.6 times as expensive as the average house at the time.

That is just so funny, there is such a low number of net contributors in this country.

For what it’s worth, I have no issue paying tax, we need an effective society. That is not what the U.K. has.

Ok but also

Rubbish collection
Drains
Road repair (the dreaded potholes)
Police patrols
Security apparatupark.maintenance
Playground maintenance
Schools
Hospitals
Bridge repair
Electricity grid
Bank bailout to stop everything collapsing in 2008
Etc etc etc

Are all things that benefit you. In addition to you benefitting directly from stuff like not having rubbish pile up on the street, it also benefits your house prices. You talk about the government "taking" or other people being grabby with your money but you have also benefitted from your taxes being spent. It hasnt all gone to useless unemployed people. In fact, as a property owner, in some ways you benefit the most from the whole system not collapsing. I think the government wastes money sometimes and feel cross about it. But I'm not so naive as to think I have only ever given and never benefitted, even though I've never claimed actual benefits in my life.

Your bias is showing. Everyone benefits from taxes being spent, whether you own a house or not, whether you pay tax or not. The simple fact is I already pay far more tax than most and I am questioning the legitimacy of paying even more.
Do I somehow have extra rubbish collection, better drainage, better NHS service, better roads? I do not, nor do I expect to. And I have never once referred to “useless employed people”. This is your terminology, not mine.

Ok but also

Rubbish collection
Drains
Road repair (the dreaded potholes)
Police patrols
Security apparatupark.maintenance
Playground maintenance
Schools
Hospitals
Bridge repair
Electricity grid
Bank bailout to stop everything collapsing in 2008
Etc etc etc

Are all things that benefit you. In addition to you benefitting directly from stuff like not having rubbish pile up on the street, it also benefits your house prices. You talk about the government "taking" or other people being grabby with your money but you have also benefitted from your taxes being spent. It hasnt all gone to useless unemployed people. In fact, as a property owner, in some ways you benefit the most from the whole system not collapsing. I think the government wastes money sometimes and feel cross about it. But I'm not so naive as to think I have only ever given and never benefitted, even though I've never claimed actual benefits in my life.

This is simply untrue. We bought our house as our forever home with a plan to stay here very long term. Rises and falls in the housing market are NOT the issue with the mansion tax, for me at least. My issue is, I’ve paid the huge amount of tax required, simply for the privilege of being able to buy my home.
But now so many people seem to feel entitled to say….well, if you can afford that, we want more of your money? Why do they feel entitled to it? Why do they feel entitled to say to a stranger, whom they do not know, I want your cash, simply because they perceive I have more than they do? Do they know what it took to earn it? Do they want to take some of the risk, throw some of their money in and take the risk of losing it? No they don’t.

As someone who did not grow up with any kind of privilege, who has been given nothing, who has worked for every single thing I own, and who already pays vast sums of tax, it is an attitude I do not understand.
I wholeheartedly agree that the most vulnerable in society need and absolutely deserve support, but I’m already doing that, via high taxes and a whole host of other measures. The inefficiency in how that money is spent is another issue.
I have been on the bones of my arse, utterly, utterly skint and never once did I look at someone with “more” and think…..they should give what they have to me.

But regional variations, and rapidly inflating house prices will just keep getting worse as long as houses in some parts of the country are an incredibly profitable investment instead of primarily a shelter. It's a ponzi scheme that hurts would be home buyers and renters

A mansion tax on its own won't fix that. But unless we rethink what houses should be for it will keep getting worse. You could fix it in a number of ways, but all of those would be resisted by people in expensive homes because, even if they say they are only there because it's the area they grew up in etc (probably true) they wouldn't want the value of that home to fall or anything that affects it's value as an investment. Hence the anger at the mansion tax.

Would you be happy to pay income tax on the same income twice? Or is it because it doesn’t affect you that it is ok?

People do pay an annual property tax per year: it’s called council tax.

Yes it is!
But even people spending time in their London investments would also be mad because maybe one day they want to sell it to a Russian or Chinese investor. There will be Tales Of Doom from the usual suspects.
I agree it should happen,.I also think taxes like the mansion tax or replacing stamp duty with land tax could help with the problem because.if you need to pay a small amount each year you have more incentive to make an empty property work for you by living in it or renting it out. But then you run into the hypothetical victims like the people who the man in the article worries won't be able to pay (he is clear he personally can pay the tax) or the poster from earlier who lives in a 1.6 million house but is very low income and if she was in the same circumstances but lived closer to the park she would be doomed etc etc.
So we go on with high house prices punishing the young and income taxes hurting the working high earners.

Would you be happy to pay income tax on the same income twice? Or is it because it doesn’t affect you that it is ok?

I think the regional disparities are awful - as shown in the differences between numbers of people who own vs rent, the unfairness of standardised stamp duty and so on. Some have theoretically gained because the home they live in has increased ten fold in value but they live in a cheaper region, plus have had the additional benefit of lower stamp duty for the space, fewer years renting, lower mortgage costs as could maybe buy a two bed or a house without going from a one bed first. If regional differences aren’t considered, perhaps it’s time to tax space instead of cost per sq ft.

Why?