Rachel Reeves considering charging CGT on sale of main residence?

Great post

Those on higher salaries also tend to be those with the skills (and experience) sought by other countries. It does make them much more mobile.

In research published in 2023, The UK came out as the 7th most expensive place to live in Europe. Due to globalization, corporate jobs in Europe increasingly use English as their working language, which makes it even easier than before for Brits to secure well-paid jobs abroad, even if they don’t arrive with the local language. Locals, who do not speak English, now loose out on these kind of jobs to foreigners with fluent English.

The Belgians, for example, live so much better than the average Brit. Their housing is affordable; their food is some of the cheapest and best in Europe; very, very cheap, state subsidized child care and their education system is also stunningly good. The average Belgian teenager speaks at least three languages (Flemish (i.e. Dutch), French and English.

Switzerland, whilst more expensive than the UK, does have some of the highest salaries in Europe. On average you would live more comfortably than in the UK. If you chose to work in Switzerland but live just over the border in France or Germany, you really can live the high life and on only one salary if you so choose.

In the UK, Private school fees are often a consideration for higher earners (and school fees have risen much higher than inflation. An expat job abroad might well include the cost of private school fees (if you wanted your children to be taught in English). In many European countries, however, private schooling (in the local language) is not at all common and where it does exist it is often a fraction of the cost of the UK (about €1,000 per child, per year - as they tend to be run on a not for profit basis). With the local schooling option, (private or not) your child ends up fluent in at least one other language.

Totally agree that this would be yet another tax on London and the commuter belt.

The planet that is paying for everything.

If you are talking about it being a capital loss, assuming the current rules around it don't change, any capital loss would roll forward and be available to offset the next capital gain.

so if a gain was made on the next house sale there would be a loss to offset against it.

Yes exactly not all privately owned property goes up in price. For example like everyone with the cladding issues who lived in fear and couldn’t sell their flats post-Grenfell tower disaster?

Good point!!

Welfare cuts should be the first step. After all this is the area growing out of control.

Once implemented then look at taxes.

However, way things are going the IMF will be called in and they won't have a choice what actions they take.

I would certainly hope that you'd be able to offset any other capital gains you've made against that loss, although that's a bit of an edge case to eg sell shares at the same time as you sell your home at a loss.

Then again, treating people consistently wouldn't give Labour maximum satisfaction in punishing the rich, so possibly not.

Well during the poll tax I lived in Wandsworth and technically the council owed us money. They decided to charge us zero.

So no you won’t be getting paid

Will she give refunds or credit to those whose homes have gone down?!

There are plenty of sources that reported the possibility of an annual property tax to sit on top of council cil tax for higher value homes. Not sure how you’ve missed them?

However, it’s all kite flying - the bigger issue is that none of the fiddling around with property taxes will touch the sides of the £60 billion black hole that this government has created in 14 months. And now commentators are drawing parallels with the 70s when, under Labour, we had to be bailed out by the IMF!!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2k1m56xgjo

CGT on main residential property will severely delay downsizing of those with houses over the threshold as CGT is at a much higher percentage for higher rate tax payers still working so incentive will be to wait til retirement when on a lower tax rate. Which means fewer family homes for sale and more people living in homes much bigger than they need.

Oh well

All the articles I’ve found say the same as the Independent 🤷🏼‍♀️

Like I said there’s louds of articles on it and
it’s been sited very clearly
I can’t say much more as I can’t be bothered to go back and find them all.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tax-rachel-reeves-labour-budget-b2811009.html

This doesn’t say anything about the replacement for stamp duty being an annual payment.

It was in the news earlier this week.
many articles
Various threads on MNet aswell posted many links to news articles including one from a think tank that advised Sunak during Covid

It wasn’t in an article about cgtax on private residences
Thats a different matter again

But where are you getting that from? Because that definitely was not the case in the story I read.

Of course, all of this is speculation as none of us actually know!

=

1. council tax as is atm ( they might change how it’s calculated though ). That money goes to your local council

plus

1. another for those who buy a property. Instead of paying a lump sum Stamp Duty you’ll pay a % of the value of your property ( 0.54% was a guess by one think tank ). You pay that 0.54% every year and the money goes to Central Government.

The later will only be on properties over a certain sale price ( as yet unknown.)

and both are paid annually together

If you’ve already bought and paid stamp you won’t have to pay but as soon as you move you will

The story I saw said the annual payment was INSTEAD of council tax, not as well as.

The tax on pension pots above the threshold is egregiously high.

Given that we need to encourage investment and housing is overinflated and damaging to society, especially in the London and the southeast, taxing housing (although not moving) makes sense.

In a way, the massive housing gains people (including me) have made are a windfall. There is nothing societally damaging about taxing housing more.

Of course it will create trade offs. But, for every older person who will lose, a young family will gain a decent house to live in.

And, of course, it should be indexed to inflation and allowances should be made for improvements.

“so for many people in their 50s plus downsizing and releasing money to live off in old age is the only way forward”

That is why I said there should be a parallel pension product people could pay some of the gain into up to a certain amount.
Again, we cannot sit here pretending that someone with a final salary pension scheme worth 3 million is the same as someone with a tiny state pension.
Somehow for everyone with some assets and some wealth and income, they have to start looking at the whole picture. They have mainly been coming for income so far and that discourages growth.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/21/baby-boomers-wealth-tax-property-pensions

I'm not a slave. I don't belong to the government, and the value I create with my ability and effort doesn't belong to the state. My personal possessions are mine - no one else is entitled to share.

The state spends a certain amount on public services each year, supposedly on behalf off us all, and to benefit us all. My fair share of the cost of those services is 1/62million of that over my lifetime.

I know you've said before that we benefit from the stability of the UK to make that money - but so does everyone else in the UK. That's part of what we're paying for with our 1/62million contribution. And partly it's the residual stability that our ancestors paid for with their contribution, which we've inherited. It certainly isn’t something we're 'buying' from the state.

Progressive taxation is charity. Not fairness.

Charity is fairly fundamental to a positive society we all want to live in. But personal responsibility and good-will are also fundamental.

When progressive taxation is excessive, and coupled with entitlement from those benefitting from the charity - and particularly when the tax is politically motivated, like education VAT - it's theft.