To ask what you think of a mansion tax?

[Liketochat1]

Nick Clegg has raised the issue of taxing people on their assets again. Is this fair? Should you have to pay more tax if you have a valuable house, art or other property?

Yes. It seems that during this recession it has been the poor who have shouldered the burden of reducing the countrys debt.

While this has been happening, the rich have had their tax rate lowered from 50p to 45p and while offshore accounts and tax avoidance schemes have been deemed "morally wrong" there has been no legislation introduced to close the loopholes.

At some point the rich need to play their part.

I would also welcome stricter regulation of the banks and for bonuses to be made illegal.

I agree with a mansion tax but think even that wouldnt be enough.

We already have inheritance tax, capital gains tax on assets/shares, stamp-duty on property sales and value added tax on purchases. Money used to buy assets is usually received net of income tax. I can see all kinds of people pleading special cases e.g. farmers having to pay tax on the value of their land, pensioners in expensive family homes.

So no... don't think this is the way forward but it probably plays well at the Lib Dem party conference. Far better to simplify and harmonise the various tax thresholds and categories so that there are fewer incentives to move cash around.

Agree with wannabe, pretty much word for word.

Nice of the LibDems and Tories to warn their mates in the City about the incoming tax rate a year in advance. All the bankers and lawyers have just deferred their pay rises and bonuses for a year so they'll be taxed at a lower rate, robbing the exchequer into the bargain.

Meanwhile, quantitative easing has paid off bankers' mortgages in London, whilst stealing from middle and low income households by devaluing their savings and sending the cost of food and fuel sky high.

There will be blood on the streets if this kind of injustice continues. The London riots were just a taste of things to come.

Yes. If you have more, you should contribute more.

The very rich pay a far lower % of their worth in taxes than the very poor. That has been demonstrated time and time and time again.

Property is the most undertaxed asset in the UK and partly caused the housing bubble.

Private householders pay no tax on the huge gains they made on their house in the boom if it is their principle residence. Holiday home owners pay no capital gains tax if they sell their main home and then go and live in their holiday home for a while before selling it. Overseas holders of UK property use all sorts of legal way sto avoid paying capital gains tax. Serial property developers buy and do up house after house, live in them for 6 months and sell on without paying capital gains tax as it is classed as their principle residence. Commercial property held by offshore invetsment trusts and the like pay no capital gains tax.

We all know about the avoidance of stamp duty by putting property in companies. Property should be taxed in the same way as all other assets.

not fair, though i do think that the rates discount for single people living alone, especially in large properties should be abolished as this is a wasteful way of living. i also disagree with my tax paying for care homes, so people can leave their houses to their families - don't see why i should subsidise this.

i have already paid, income tax, NI, stamp duty and rates for my property and maybe one day capital gains. don't think i should have to pay even more.

we are a middle income family and have been hit by various taxe rises wannabe.

Surely if you have a mansion you've already either paid inheritance tax or stamp duty at a higher rate already?

No, because it penalises for succeeding.

I may be wrong here but I thought the thing with the mansion tax was to do with those that bought large properties via companies and therefore didn't pay stamp duty.

Or is this another mansion tax?

I do actually agree with cogito in a way.

The whole tax system needs reformed. And strict legislation put in place to ensure the rich pay the tax they owe.

But as it stands a mansion tax is needed because the system is letting tax slip through.

I find it quite ironic that the government is "cracking down" on fradulent benefit claimants. Yes there are people who claim tens of thousands illegally. Yet the government is doing nothing about the billions being lost each year in these schemes.

The poorest in the country dont have the choice to avoid tax. PAYE sees to that. Yet the rich are left to their own devices. Its a disgrace.

Middle income is not "rich" dreaming

Perhaps the brains shoud be put to work to see how the taxes that are paid are used efficiently rather than devising new wheezes to screw those unfortunate enough not to be able to find the loopholes ....

Yes, I think this makes sense.

wannabe - i was just wondering about that and what people consider to be a mansion. My IL's would consider us rich and living in a mansion. we just think we have a comfortable life, decent house and children who will be forever poor.

I have friends who are now a very wealthy couple in their 50's

They have worked VERY VERY hard all their lives. They both got excellent degrees - not without a significant amount of personal effort, and then have worked hard on their careers to build up to the point they are at now.

Obviously they have paid tax and national insurance on their income through-out their working lives, for much of it they will have been in the high taxation bands, and currently continue to pay income tax at the top level. When their children were small, they both still worked hard, and employed people like a nanny and a gardener. These employees were paid out of the income of my friends which had already been taxed. Tax and NI was then paid on that money earned by the Nanny and the gardener. So in effect, Tax was paid twice on some of my friends income.

They live in a VERY large, very beautiful house which must have cost a great deal . They will have paid a significant sum in stamp duty when it was bought (as they did on their previous property). Stamp-duty itself is already a form of 'mansion tax'.

They have money to spend, and when they spend it, they pay 20% in VAT on most of it (just about everything except basic foods of course).

So yes, they are 'rich', but every month they are already contributing more to the taxation system.
What is 'fair' or equitable about suddenly demanding more money from them just because they have more than most others?

If we didn't have people able and prepared to work to acquire that sort of wealth, to pay standard taxes every month, then the tax revenue would fall significantly. And if we over-tax those who are capable of making a lot of money, many of them will go and live somewhere else.

This plan is nothing more than 'envy politics', and I would have no truck with it.

One of the things the mansion tax was purported to do was ensure those who live in the UK but are not resident for tax purposes paid more tax. Personally I think we should be stricter about letting people spend significant amounts of time here without paying tax on their income, but in lieu of that I am not against a mansion tax.

Every time I buy something I also pay 20% VAT. A lot of people who arent rich pay stamp duty.

So they pay more on their wages. But really, apart from that they arent paying any more than the rest of us.

wannabe but the SDLT is tiered so if you buy a more expensive property you pay the higher rate on the whole value of the the property not just on the amount that exceeds the lower band. So people who buy expensive houses pay proportionately more SDLT on a property than people who buy less expensive ones.

dreaming- I think there would have to be a threshold.

Personally I have no problem with people who do well for themselves. My issue is with rich people who avoid paying tax and then sit on their high horse criticising the lazy people for being a drain on society.

If the poor have to face benefit reforms why the hell shouldnt the more well off pay more?

They should be taxed on how many windows they have in their property...just like the Georgians did.

...hence the term 'daylight robbery'

Considering Clegg voted to give some of us hundreds of thousands in tax cuts a few moths ago he seems to not have any idea t all about what he wants to do.

Clegg is an irrelevant and Cameron needs to call a snap election and send the Libdems out to the wilderness. Lets face it no sensible person would vote for Wallace either so he could take another 5 years with a strong majority to do some real changes.

The problem is that the uber -rich will always be able to afford the tax advisers to mitigate or avoid the payment of any such tax which targets them.

I'm dreading this being brought in in case my home falls in the threshold. DH and I have worked really bl**dy hard for what we've got. Not one penny has been gifted by wealthy parents or inherited. It took me until I was 30 to pay off my student and 'early years of London living costs' debt doing a job I hate where I worked minimum 12 hour days. I've also been financially supporting my parents who never saw the up-side of the Thatcher years. We've just bought and renovated a house I adore, paying 20% VAT on the 6 figure cost of the renovations on top of stamp duty which was tens of 1000s. We've ploughed our life savings so far into a wonderful home to raise a family in.

Frankly I've played the game the hard way - by the rules - and I'm bl**dy hacked off it's me who'll be in line to pay all over again. I do not support the poorest of society bearing the cost of the bank bail outs but I don't support being penalised for my enterprise and effort either.

It's only the extremely rich who can get around the tax system. Unfortunately however unfair this is they are also major income generators for the country, and if they had to pay significantly more tax many would move to more favorable countries, which wouldn't benefit the country as a whole.

Also many high earners are being hugely taxed, 45% income tax, stamp duty, taxes on pensions, capital gains tax, NI etc etc. In the end it's a disincentive to work any harder because there's little net gain.

Its a shortsighted (hypothetical) policy.

The Laffer curve shows that there is a point at which a higher rate of taxation actually produces lower revenue for the government.

What we need to get us out of the recession is growth, which will be hampered by higher rates of taxation (an economic 'withdrawal')

Failing that, inflation running at a higher than average rate will erode the size of the deficit much faster than any tinkering about with spending/taxation ever will. Yes it will hit those on fixed incomes (i.e. pensioners) but they have for the most part benefited hugely from rising house prices so I find it hard to muster much sympathy for them tbh.