Latest mansion tax should be on top % homes locally not nationallu

But then the property market crashes.

If I have to pay CGT on my primary residence I simply won't move. I paid a large amount of stamp duty when I bought my house. I've lived here for 20 years so much of the gain on paper is actually just inflation. Plus then I've spent a good few hundred thousand on the house which I can't evidence because I never thoughts I'd have to. So instead of downsizing I will sit forever in my house which is too big for just me and DH. There is then no CGT to pay by my estate since at that point IHT kicks in.

The current system of stamp duty being paid by a purchaser works because it's factored into the cost of buying a house which has been valued at the point of the purchase and its factored into affordability/mortgage lending.

It won't happen anyway. Firstly because it will hit many MPs and secondly because there is no possible way of valuing that much housing stock quickly. It would take years for the system to adapt and for enough surveyors to be trained. I know people will say you can use last land registry value and extrapolate from that but you simply can't because people renovate their houses.

So the fairest way to tax people on property would be capital gains on the unearned money. In your scenario when selling up the person in Brixton would pay much more than the person in Byker as their property would have increased by a much higher amount. Stamp duty on purchase should be abolished and a 5% tax would be paid on the difference between purchase price and sale price. Might work. I’d abolish council tax, it’s a very out of date system that is based on property values from 40 years ago. A two million pound four bed in some parts of London can pay less CT than a three bed semi worth less than a quarter of that in another part of the country. It should be a basic percentage of the current value, with valuations being updated every five years. When I lived in London my CT was £500 a year less than the property I moved to despite my new home costing £200k less than the London house.

😁

Christ if l had a house worth 2 million ld sell it if l had no pension.

How my heart bleeds for these people with 2m pound houses.

Don’t be daft! If someone in a £2m house has no pension they can move, I’m commuting distance to London (just) and you can get 4 beds and a garage for a quarter of that.
Wealth tax wouldn’t be infinite, it would be a % on assets above a particular amount.

OK. But not generally. You must admit that buying a London house using the sale proceeds of a similar house from the NE is impossible. It just is.

Also, I'm intrigued about crofters still being a thing? What do they do?

Are crofters known to be wealthy?

Edinburgh is very expensive compared to the rest of Scotland but it is a capital city. What I meant by that comparison is that while it is expensive, it is possible to buy places in London that are actually not too dissimilar to other parts of the country. And I still maintain that people living in London are very lucky to live there.

Yes your friends in your village in Scotland are probably more wealthy than a NE ex mining villager.

Edinburgh as a capital city has decent house prices too that have increased hugely.

I’m from the Highlands, I lived in Edinburgh for a bit.

Imagine moving from a tiny tiny Highland village to London and being able to buy somewhere - oh wait, it’s possible because my friends have done it.

You can't pay IHT until you are dead. Your estate pays it. Not your beneficiaries

Just for info.

Yes. Like I (and most of my school year group) had to do because there are very little further education or career prospects in the Highlands. Imagine that.

@PerkyCyanPoetTheres work in Edinburgh though! That hardly the NE is it?! Very different scenario. Try moving from a poor old mining village to London and buying somewhere! Yes the highly paid few in law and finance can, eventually. But prices are much much higher than most of NE England and you need more multiples of salaries.

Agree that anyone can move - including those who can’t find work in their area where all their friends and family are - they can move to find work elsewhere, away from their support networks and home.

Yes?

The people who own £2 million houses may well be less wealthy than you. They could have less equity and a higher mortgage. They could have a lower disposable income and less in savings and investments. They might have no pension.

If they turned around and suggested that in fact net wealth should be taxed (pretty reasonable when you think about it!) and that the amount you owned fell into this category then would you accept a charge of 1% annually forever and ever on your assets? I imagine you would instantly see that over 10 years this would be 10% and over 50 years this would be 50% until suddenly you wouldn't have much left at all.

We need to guard against this type of taxation in principle because it is indeed a slippery slope and is extremely hard to apply fairly. I genuinely think you are only in favour of it because you think it won't impact you.

Quite a few have bought flats in London actually and some have bought houses in the commuter areas. One of my friends flats in London wasn’t much more expensive than the flat I owned when I lived in Edinburgh, just as a comparison.

London prices are expensive, I’m not disagreeing with you! But living in London/the south has so many other benefits. At the end of the day everyone has free will, if you don’t like living there you can move.

I don't really understand your point.

We pay a sales tax on most things. We don't pay a tax on ownership. That's two completely different things and at the heart of my argument.

You buy a coat and pay VAT. You don't subsequently pay tax just because you have retained ownership of the coat. It is setting a new precedent to do this.

Yep. She and Starmer are making awful decisions. Now they have a bigger hole to fill as the last budget was woeful.

Yep. Foolish and unnecessary. Chickens coming home to roost. So disappointed in Labour on this.

That's a sales tax. Like VAT. It's not an annual tax applied to ownership

I never claimed it was the latter. But it fall under the category of paying tax to own a house....

@PerkyCyanPoetThey might move to London but they cannot afford to buy property in London! There’s a huge difference in property prices - a doctor can easily buy in the NE, as could a teacher. The state paid workers are well off in some areas. They won’t be anywhere near as well off in London and will be renting for years! Unless they have bank of mum and dad of course. Then look at rents in London! They might get work but costs are sky high.

@Leavesfalling I keep my pit pony in mine.

The most expensive property near me is a mill for sale, it’s a huge factory that would be turned in to a couple of hundred luxury flats if in a desirable city centre. Just as a comparison @PerkyCyanPoet Though we do have places like Harrogate that are really expensive.

Absolutely, but the discussion is about most expensive housing being taxed. I’m incredibly lucky, I have a nice house and cover my bills comfortably, that’s not the experience of the majority of people, but I’m also not in the group of people who have extreme wealth, there is a group who have seen their wealth grow significantly over the past 20 years and it’s reasonable to tax this wealth.

I do pay a decent amount of tax, I have paid inheritance taxes (a small amount before the threshold rose a few years ago) and happily done so because inheritance is an incredible privilege. I am not interested in my house increasing in value, because a house is worth the cost of a house right? I do think we need to urgently build more decent social housing.

ive also been dirt poor and struggling to pay private rent and that was a miserable experience, and I really think we need to urgently improve the situation for private renters.

They shouldn't tax property unless you own multiple houses. Just because you live in a expensive house doesn't necessarily mean you have bags of cash.

I have worked in 3 to 4 million pound homes where people can't afford repairs, to heat them. I always think why don't they sell up and downsize but it's often emotional links as it was a family home. Regardless it's not my place to judge.

Taxing a home is a blunt instrument that will cause more harm than good.

They would be better looking at HMOs or large buy to let landlords....or even social housing as a means to raise money. I say this because property has become a business with those renting paying a huge price.

Where I’m from, most young people leave for uni and careers and won’t ever be able to move home. There are no jobs here. Lots move to London for work obviously despite property prices.

So yes to me you’re very lucky to live in London/the south.

Don’t make it easier by discussing who should stump up more.

Labour's manifesto is, "fully funded and fully costed - no ifs, no ands, no buts… no additional tax rises."

"I have been very clear that every policy we announce, and every line in our manifesto, will be fully costed and fully funded."

“Nothing in our plans requires any additional tax to be increased.”

“We’ve got the Office for Budget Responsibility now… You don’t need to win an election to find out [about the public finances].”

“I don’t believe that fiddling around with tax rates is the best way to grow the economy.”

Meanwhile the Amazons of this world pay a tiny proportion of their profits in tax.