to think mansion tax is an unfair tax on London and the South East?

[goodnessgracious]

I disagree with mansion tax but regardless it seems to me to be unfair on Londoners.

Aibu to think that it may also force some people to sell their properties who are income poor but property rich?

LePetitMarseillais If you were selling your home would you care it it was to a second-homer or a BTLer or would you just sell for the best price you could get?

Though so.

I would care actually and given the scarcity of affordable housing in the popular area I live in pretty sure I could be choosy.Property doesn't hang around for long.

I suppose the tax could be reviewed later if house prices rose more.

BTW not all people on benefits have not worked hard in the past. Some have become ill/disabled, etc. Inconsiderate barstewards that they are, eh ReallyTired.THEY DON'T ALL HAVE FLAT SCREEN TVs EITHER.

So what kind of discount would you be offering for locals?

I totally agree with crimeariver. Brilliant post.

As others have said those who own the empty property or the super rich will not care.

labour are not going to win. Ed balls is atrocious. I can not believe the policies.

I would be someone who would vote labour but not now. not at all - I am surprised at how they have turned me off as I don't like the Tories either but labour are atrocious.

BTW not all people on benefits have not worked hard in the past. Some have become ill/disabled, etc. Inconsiderate barstewards that they are, eh ReallyTired.THEY DON'T ALL HAVE FLAT SCREEN TVs EITHER.

It's could be the same for the owners of the so called mansions though.
Worked all their life, became ill/disabled, can't afford the tax.
So the inconsiderate bastards will have to sell up their home and move.

This is fair how?

This tax thing is madness.
Divide and conquer is what it is.

Schnitzel, unless there's a spare politician hanging about on this thread AND they've got crystal balls (who knows what will be in the papers tomorrow), nobody here can tell you what will be offered by way of discount. I suppose we just have to trust our elected representatives ....

The question is though snapple, who can afford to lose the most votes. That's what it boils down to. I hate the current government, not keen on labour either. Ultimately though, one of them will win. Who can afford to throw votes away. That is the question.

(as a lifelong Labour voter) I was particularly fucked off that this latest money raising rouse was part and parcel of the "taking from the bad to give to the good" speech. My house isn't worth £2m yet but on current trajectories it won't be that long. (Victorian terrace zone 3 SW London, 4/5 bed.) I left home with nothing and put myself through Uni to the tune of £20k debt. Got a good job (In London, where all the work was) and have paid off my own debt and that of my parents and continue to financially support them through their retirement (financially fucked with multiple spells of redundancy through the Tory-led 80s). I worked damn fucking hard throughout my 20s and early 30s (I mean frequently right through the night and 70-90 hour weeks.) DH did similarly. My home is not the result of accident of birth nor windfall upon death. Nor is it paid for by bankers bonuses. (In fact we have a massive mortgage against it).

I moved from my home (northern) town to get away from the poverty that besieged it. I work bloody hard all the bloody time for over a decade (still working now, just hours that allow me to see my kids). DH very similar. No fucker gave us a leg up. We have no fancy tax planning schemes or advisers, we have no copper-bottomed pensions like public sector workers. We have no bankers bonuses.

And yet, if property prices head the same way I will be required to give away yet more of my post-income tax money. I will be contemplating emigration if this happens. I do not want my hard work treated like this.

So let me see. Londoners move out to avoid the Mansion Tax bringing large pots of money from the sale of their London properties. They start competing for properties in other areas pushing the prices up. How long before the "just move" brigade are complaining about the bastard incomers forcing house prices up.

All taxation decisions will upset somebody though. Why are the disabled and sick people in rented housing affected by bedroom tax more 'eligible' to move than people rattling around in big hooses, whether on zimmer frames or not? I don't actually have an opinion either way on proposed mansion tax. Like many here, it won't affect me or anyone I know so maybe it's a good idea???? Just possibly people with big hooses who sell up are better off than people who have to move due to bedroom tax.

Threads on MN are always full of people talking about their own interests. Just sometimes you get considered and intelligent debate.

If Londoners are going to have to pay mansion tax on £2 million pound properties, then should everyone else around the country be paying mansion tax on the equivalent type of house in their city/town/village?

An quick google shows me that a very attractive 5 bed semi with a nice sized garden is what you get not too far from me for £2 million.

So, if that costs £1 million in Manchester or £500,000 in Scotland - then those owners should pay mansion tax too?

The vast majority of ordinary Londoners are in despair about property prices in the capital - it does not benefit them in any way.

We have this in the SouthWest Chazs. We have many families moving to our local school from London having sold their £2million properties. They move from their 3 beds to their 6 beds, but they are still rich and now our school is bursting at the seams. Still, most of them tend to go private in yr5 so not all bad.

Think a scaled income tax is the fairest way to do it. Not a 22-40 per cent jump but phased over a lot more and with the highest rate much higher than 40.

I guess it would be pretty hard to implement.

Chaz, Londoners moving out has already happened AND affected house prices elsewhere in the UK. Maybe something very much more radical than a 'mansion tax' is required to even things up. Thing is, too, people in other parts of UK work hard and travel a long way to and from work. People in rural Perthshire where I am now complain about the rise in house prices from people coming north. The incomers are not all from London and buying second homes, but many are.

ihate
I don't doubt it and I'm sure there is no proper planning to take account of the effect of the increasing population. I think the last thing anyone needs is for the property price bubble to spread out of London. The Mansion Tax might cool prices in London but the knock on effect maybe increased prices rippling out from London.

I am not directly affected by this proposal as we own more than one property in the SE rather than one large one.

incomers

People moving from one part of their country to another. No need for that hostile word.

Andrew
Sorry I meant to put that phrase in inverted commas i.e. what the local population might say when incomers drive prices out of reach.

Londoners suffer far more than anywhere else in the country from "incomers" skewing prices.

Greater london contains about 15% of the uk population but has 11% of mp's. Perhaps the The 89% of mp's who represent 85% of the population should be doing more for their constituents.

Not much Londoners can do to influence them though. They didn't vote for them.

Can't argue with you there mintyy.

I could almost have written herethere's post - same history here too except to pay off my much lower earner husband I had to take on mortgage debt of over £1.3m. that inequity that their father who chooses not to see, pay for or have the children even a night a year in his under £1m unmortgaged house who has all our life savings and capital would not pay and I who have much higher costs than he has - mortgage to pay, children to keep and where the house (but not the assets I own once debt is removed) might be over £2m am in mansion tax territory. In other words do the right thing and house your family together and you are regarded as bad guy in Labour's eyes. Spend your money on yachts, prostitutes, 3 £1m flats and you are a lower earner who is not subject to capital confiscation taxes.

The new tax would be payable by someone with zero equity in their house, no savings and an over draft. It is tax on capital you do not have as they make no allowance for mortgage debt. Those who bought recently for £2.1m say will have paid 7% stamp duty too (£147k) so instead of saying wow you having given the state so much in income tax of nearly 50% and then out of that taxed income £147k in stamp duty thanks - they say you are evil and rich (even though you have no spare money and your mortgage debt could exceed the house value) and we will tax you yet again with an annual wealth tax chargeable only on those who put their all into housing a family rather than rich play boys who don't stick around to see or form families.

People who own these homes have probably gained a huge amount in equity purely by being there. I do not feel sympathy for people being taxed on unearned assets

They haven't earned anything unless they sell.
All the equity is just on paper.

And they will have to pay it if they simply want to stay in a family home they paid for.

I must ask, if we want to tax 'unearned wealth' - why don't lotto winners get taxed on their winnings? Lottery winners in most other countries have to pay tax on that. If you get a £3m bankers bonus, we take more than half of it in income tax and NI, yet if you win £3m you get to keep the lot.

You might argue that a banker hasn't worker harder than someone on NMW for their money, but you know what, they've worked a shed load more than someone who just said "and a ticket for tonight's draw" when buying something in their corner shop.

It's £77m tonight, if someone in the UK gets that, they will keep the £77m, how is that fair? It's the only way you get a large lump sum in this country and the tax man leaves you alone. Yes the ticket has been taxed, but if you buy a new frock, part of that price includes VAT, the shop owner still has to pay tax on their profits, they can't argue tht money's already been taxed the once already.