Rachel Reeves considering charging CGT on sale of main residence?

But the same would happen to other properties so you'd get a flat lining effect on the market.

And mine!

Exactly this.

I guess it’s one way of bringing down the UK’s ridiculously high house prices….

That’s pedantic!

This was exactly my plan too.... what's the effing point eh!!

I don’t think this is a great idea if it is going to stop people downsizing, because they will lose such a chunk to tax. I’d rather they just put the income tax up.

The problem as I see it is that the Government is in a doom loop (not that it would be any different if there was a Conservative Government in charge).

Public spending is going up with higher welfare and state pension costs combined with calls for greater spending on health, education and defence.

If the Government increases taxes then it will simply slow the economy further (as we saw with the Labour NI increase.

Politically Labour can't cut spending as we saw on the incapacity benefits u turn,

Snd Labour can't increase debt (as Liz Truss found out the hard way) with yields continuing to rise.

So Labour continues in this loop of raising taxes which slows the economy reducing Government tax income. The Government then increases taxes again to make up for this economic slowdown causing another slowdown and so on.

Grow the economy.

Encourage manufacturing. Oh wait, our really expensive energy has seen that off. NetZero is going to make it worse.

Encourage businesses to take on staff. Oh wait, our really expensive NI for employers has stopped that.

And - most critically - these are being funded by the state ie today’s tax payers…

The huge gold plated pensions are where the money is.

There are lots of people on pensions bigger than the amount their children will ever earn at their career peak.

This won’t work in this context and I cannot see RR going for it. Many who support Labour would not like this at all - as Raising it to 20K would exclude many asset wealthy pensioners (who are sat mortgage free and getting 12K a year pension plus WFA and for many - private pensions) from paying tax and they are the ones mostly using the broken and underfunded services being paid for the by the squeezed middle workers.

Many middle class workers are struggling on 35-80K bracket, huge mortgages and huge student loads with access only to poor services and no UC and or PIP/DLA uplift and they won’t appreciate being taxed more on their income/wages. She has to go for untaxed wealth. No alternative for her really. Having said this one no idea why she backed down on WFA removal.

I largely agree.

It's a trial balloon.

They are testing how much they think they can get away with and floating worse ideas to try and soften when they do raise other taxes so there will be less objections.

Fucking with housing would be a very stupid move.

However, you need receipts...... Who will have keep receipts for kitchens, bathrooms, heating, windows from the last 30 years.... I know I haven't.

While I agree with taxing the wealthy more than us plebs, I do think there are many other things this useless woman can tax - gambling, booze, fags, luxury goods, fancy cars, second homes - all those things we don't actually need. Also extra tax on property bought by foreign nationals who do not otherwise contribute, or claw back the appropriate amount of tax from the likes of Amazon etc. Or, to be honest, just stop throwing money at the wrong things - cancel HS2, stop all the pointless public enquiries years after the event, that do nothing to help anyone. Stop allowing illegal migrants to enter the country (sorry I should say stop making the coastguard escort them safely) to stay in hotels at taxpayers' expense, with free lawyers on tap. Tighten up the welfare system. Get rid of the outdated and pointless House of Lords.

You’ve got them all sussed. Bravo.

Funnily enough I mentioned this to my accountant last week. He dismissed it immediately saying they would never do it.

I thought as soon as they got in they would come after primary residence after all it’s another thing that people have aspired to have - their own home. It’s not our fault that successive governments have failed to manage property prices. One of the key causes of house price inflation was/is the availability of money encouraging lending. If she does this we will stay put and not down size.

Oh I'll keep on laughing even if that happens because I'll be able to fuck off abroad...

... It won't happen. Why? Because even if those people move abroad, they choose to live in expensive areas and expect a certain life style. And the cost of living in most of those places they'd consider living is still going to be extortionate.

Otherwise they'd move outside London within the UK, but they either think those places are beneath them or those (very limited number of specialist jobs) only exist in very expensive other cities which have many of the same issues plus often many of the same ones.

Its blackmail and snobbery more than anything though and should be identified as such.

It’s nice that you’re amused. Keep laughing as I’d like to keep hearing it when it gets dark and cold.

I’m not sure she’s tone deaf. There’s a lot of money coming in and a lot of money going out. The spending is aiding the economy as is the tax on the income. For all you know that poster and her husband might have highly needed jobs. A surgeon perhaps? I don’t want those people run out of the country because labour is obsessed with brain draining the country. I’d rather like it if we could keep some high earning people onshore as I’m not convinced slotting in Shiela with her National Diploma in amateur dance us going to cut it in that role.

But, few people can or will sell before the budget. And this measure, implemeted will mean most people will just sit tight. That not only raises zero additional CGT, it also massively reduces the amount of Stamp Duty collected in the short term. As a way of plugging an immediate, self inflicted, shorfall in government income it's up there with taxing employment as a way of delivering growth 😂

It’s a policy suggesting taxing the primary residences of people with higher value homes - of course people who actually own those (or have an opportunity to own those) are relevant.

The entire tax policy of the UK can’t be based around ‘what do people working part-time on minimum wage or solely existing on the state pension want?’.

It is not ‘tone deaf’ for the people generating more of the tax income to fund the support these groups can claim from the government, having a view on how they are taxed, and what is fair.

OP is literally being incentivised by the government already to work less and pay less tax…she’s already got an 80% rate on a big % of her income… and they’re suggesting another policy to increase her tax bill. Of course that’s going to annoy her.

A £300k income isn’t unremarkable (and I never said it was), a £750k property in London is going to be pretty unremarkable though yes. I think the average cost of a house in London is now something like £650k.

The way people earning over £150k think they and everyone else earning over £150k can just move abroad and be paid the same does really rather amuse me.

No, lots of people who earn that much will not be able to move even if they want to.

I don't disagree with you on the principle of the tax.

I do think it's utterly deluded to think you can continue to get away with not paying more tax regardless of your high income.

I'm going to repeat what I said before

"Do you ever wonder what planet people saying things like this are on?"

Honestly, it's so unbelievably out of touch it's untrue.

£300k house hold income

"Unremarkable"

Only £4000 in mortgage. Only £750,000 property. ££4000 to spend on bills and luxuries. And there will be another £2500 a month when the children are in full time education.

Meanwhile there will be people reading this who earn £12000 A YEAR and have no housing security at all and live in a really shitty area.

It's tone deaf. Utterly tone deaf.

I say this as someone who has a reasonable standard of living and income and I still think it's utterly deluded to say out loud especially.

There isn't a violin small enough.