I would have to pay this tax.
Zero inherited wealth. First generation at university. Same for my husband.
We both do city jobs (not the ones which caused the crisis) which we no not like very much because we wanted to be financially secure, not dependent on anyone else and to be able to cope alone and support our child even if something happened to the other. We also want to be able to pay school fees.
Both of us have a minimum 12 hour working day, often longer. Our personal lives are disrupted by travel and client demands. The pressure is huge and the people we have to deal with often very unpleasant. The upside is that we are, by most people's standards, very well off. The benefit of doing these ghastly jobs is not just for us: probably about fifty people in our organisations are directly dependent upon what we (as individuals) do to give them a job. At home we employ(on good terms) an au pair, a cleaner and a gardener. We do not claim child benefit, we do not use the state schools or (except by way of back up) the NHS. We both completely accept that we should also pay a fair share of tax. Neither of us had any objection to income tax at 50%. Neither of us has ever done anything to seek to minimise the tax we pay and, for people who actually work in this country it is pretty difficult to do so.
Our jobs bring into this country substantial amounts of money by way of payment for invisible export. Someone has to generate the income out of which the public sector is paid for.
In order to do the ghastly jobs but still have some family life we need to live near work. Our house is about 3,000 sqare feet: four beds, 2 bath, drawing room, sitting room, big kitchen/dining room plus bed/bath/sitting room for au pair and nice, good sized garden. This is not in a fashionable part of town but the house would almost certainly be assessed as worth about £2.3 million. It was paid for entirely out of income which had already been taxed at 40/45/50%; and if we were to die tomorrow, another 40% would go in tax. Out of the sum originally earned, there is not really much left, especially if an annual 1% is taken by way of "mansion tax".
All the time we are working, we can afford the tax, even though it is monstrously unfair; but we will not be able to do so when we retire. This house is our home and I had hoped never to have to move. I think we have done our bit for society one way or another and I do not think it much to ask that we keep our home. Before someone says that this is no different than someone who has to move because of the bedroom tax, that is nonsense: we have earned our house and paid for it. It has not been given to us by the state, paid for by someone else.
What irks me even more than the reality of having to pay this tax if introduced is its name: "mansion tax" is a disingenuous term designed to generate unthinking envy and hatred of one part of society by others- the house described above is hardly a "mansion". It is the equivalent of mindless benefit bashing. I used to vote liberal democrat on the basis that they were inclusive and meritocratic. Never again. I have wokred for my home, paid my taxes and deserve to keep it.
If starting again now, seeing that a miserable, wealth creating private sector job leaves one vilifed and not even entitled to stay in one's home when old, I might have chosen a more comfortable, interesting path, probably paid for out of someone else's taxes.
Apologies for the rant. I have been holding off all day.