Rachel Reeves considering charging CGT on sale of main residence?

Per my earlier comment - pensions already are taxed. You want more?

Housing is effectively also a dead investment.

A pension is mainly invested in equity, which helps the country to grow and GDP.

A house merely helps housing wealth and actually makes working and living in the uk hard for someone who doesn’t already have a property.

Pensions are taxed. To date, the primary residence CGT exemption has actively encouraged people to use their house as a pension, which is terrible for the economy in numerous ways.

The money invested in a pension is taxed on draw down.

Someone made the point that some people have put all their wealth into housing instead of their pension. So to tax them on that decision, versus someone else who went all out on their pension, but overall asset value is the same, makes zero sense.
The whole point is to look at people’s complete wealth and income, not just one random facet of it. People should not be paying more tax relative to someone else who is just as rich or as poor.

It means fairer between the generations

It really doesn’t.

👏👏

You do know pension income is already taxed

It means fairer between the generations @Chewbecca
There is immense value in pension pots. Monetary value can be assessed. If all income is taxed and housing and wealth, then surely pensions should be as well.
If I have stashed 3 million into my private pension instead and move abroad to enjoy it and avoid inheritance tax, but someone else stashed into into their house, why exactly would it be fair to only tax the person with the house when they leave. Makes no sense.

Not sure how to treat the pension pots and final salary pension schemes, but again, should be thresholds for those. It is the only way to start making the tax system fairer for all. @Araminta1003

What do you mean by this? You still pay tax when drawing down from your pension, whether that be a DC or a DB scheme. And there are many thresholds for putting money into them. IHT now due on inherited DC pots (subject to thresholds) and recipients of any DB spousal pension will also pay income tax on it.

What more do you want from my pension that I have diligently saved for all my working life?

What does 'fairer for all' look like to you?

I disagree. I suspect, if they implement this, it would be the same rules as to what is a capital improvement and what isn't.

if you put new heating/windows in - you get the benefit of them while you live there. Lower heating costs etc. but they also have a limited time of adding capital value. A brand new heating system may offer a capital improvement but after 10 years? Not so much!

of course they might go back to how cgt was calculated until early 2000's. Where there was relief for how long you held an asset.

tax policies like this are not about raising revenue. Cgt can easily be avoided by just not selling the asset. Policies like this are about influencing taxpayer behaviour.

like being rewarded for holding assets for a long period of time - both indexation and taper relief. It was see

Anyone earning over 100k will be filling out tax forms with everything and everyone owning a property/wealth/investment worth above 750k should be filling in tax forms. Not sure how to treat the pension pots and final salary pension schemes, but again, should be thresholds for those. It is the only way to start making the tax system fairer for all.

In investment properties, capital improvements are tax deductible against CGT. Maintenance costs are tax deductible against income tax (for individuals).
It will have to be different for main residence where there is no income tax on main residence.

Unless they are going to have some unique system for all high value property which goes into both income and capital gains taxes somehow.
How can you possibly charge people outrageous amounts of local property tax with no regard to their actual income and wealth.

I think I know where this is going now. There will be tax forms for all the vaguely rich on everything. There is no other way of doing this. At least it may get rid of the anomaly where the HENRYS are screwed and not having children.

The easiest way to instigate this is to use the existing cgtax calculator on Govn uk
You put in your details including all costs which include improvements ( not personal choose upgrades there’s a list of what can be included ) then you’re given your bill straight away
Obviously they’d have to remove the section on PRR
You pay based on that then send in / upload receipts

However
Someone has to check those receipts. There’s a cost to that. Or maybe to make it cost effective they won’t bother

There is no reason to suppose that improvements won’t be deductible.

They are currently on investment properties.

Capital improvements, on the other hand – those that upgrade, enhance, or add value to the property – can be deducted from your gain, helping to reduce your final CGT bill.

Well we need to spend in the order of 150,000 on our listed property
It won’t make that that much difference in sale price but for the sake of the building it is needed

We’re now questioning whether we should and will wait and see come the Autumn budget

Of course they will.

New windows are an improvement if you go from single glazing to triple glazing, for example. All added green stuff usually counts as a capital improvement. There would be set criteria for what counts. Loft conversion is adding value, so is an extension. So is an insulated front door.

Agree
People won’t spend money on much needed maintenance and our existing housing stock will suffer

Agree a simple sale shouldnt
Our last buyers who bought this January were cash buyers
however
the money was in several bank accounts and some was coming from family
Each source had to be tracked back to find its original source
Usually a cash sale would go through in 11/12 weeks but on this occasion it took 17weeks because of those checks
First time buyer and we had already moved out so no chain

Exactly.. so why use your taxed earnt money to replace your windows to then have to pay CGT on the improvement value later!!!

Total farce by current and previous governments, if they stopped wasting tax payers money on crap schemes ( ie HS2 and sending immigrants to other countries and fitting out barges that never get used) the government has wasted billions!!!

I don’t see how new windows are a CG for example if you are just replacing windows that have worn out over time.

I don’t think that flies either. Example the simplest you could possibly imagine - a transaction with a probate property and a cash first time buyer so no chain. The cash derived from a transaction that was handled by the buyer’s solicitor so they already held the paper trail. It took four months.

How would you prove and have receipts for capital gain improvements over a 10 year period!!

roof replacement is that a capital gain
new windows
new front door
garden landscaping
upgraded driveway
patio
etc etc

Surely old people would move into rented if more were available on a secure basis and at a reasonable price, as is the case in lots of other European countries?
The issue for old people is they do not know how much longer they will live and they need security from being evicted and flexibility.