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?

is this to fund the tax cuts DC has promised?

This is Ed Milliband's plan to be seen to stick the knife in the rich 'save the NHS', which it won't come anywhere close to doing, on either front.

alot of the MPs are well off anyway. also what about if you own several properties that easily add up to over 2 million which are rented as oppose to your home.

I agree with Sleepwhenidle, that's exactly the problem.

It seems like Milliband is trying to fix the fact that some people just have "too much" money.

It's bizarre.

When someone is affected by the bedroom tax them it's always their home and they are worthy recipients and they can't possibly be expected to move.

When someone is affected by the mansion tax it's always their asset and they have been lucky and generally lazy bastards and pay up or else sell up must move at once.

It seems some people think that once you you've paid for your own house then you're fair game.

I don't belong to any of these two categories, but really, both taxes can be just as unfair.

I'm frankly having difficult absorbing the comparison of the bedroom tax to the mansion tax. It reminds me of the surreal conversations I have with my 12 year old when he compares his own spending money situation to mine.

The only difference, really, is that my 12 year old is legally unable to get a job. The comparison might be unfair to him.

i don't think the bedroom tax is relevant tbh.

What I mean is the direct comparisons here, on MN.

yeah i know coffee

Yes, I wasn't referring to you coffee. I posted about it upstream a bit to the person who did actually compare the two.

Sure!

And actually, not just the comparisons between the BT and MT, but also the comparisons between the people affected.
really gets my goat.

I've been fiddling around on Zoopla the prices of which bear no relationship to our local sold prices. I hope local councils do not go by zoopla. Zoopla shows the only recent sale on our road was £1.95m which would be one with a pool really well done up and is under £2m because stamp duty goes up to 7% at £2m yet it is saying most houses on the road are worth over £2m even though that is not what sold prices prove.

Most people who are not communist believe that you if you get state benefits you are very lucky and we are grateful when we get them and please we in the past or tax payers now are prepared to pay for them and also think if you save up money or buy a house that should be your asset to keep.

inconceivableme
It's Monopoly money, all that increase money.
Nut the tax will be payable in real money.

That's what's not right.
Well, one of the things that aren't right.

Knewanna I pay a lot more than £1400 for council tax (it wasn't my situation I was describing).

A bedsit in an isolated ex-mining town is always going to have lower rent than a one bed flat in London.

My point is that as council tax is massively out of date, multimillion pound houses in London, generally pay less council tax than £400k ones in other areas.

If a flat is worth £600,000, council tax should be based on that value, not the fact that it was worth peanuts in 1991. Similarly a house worth £5m should pay substantially more. At present, even excluding Westminster, Wandsworth and the City of London, Londoners pay far less tax, which is in part why prices have gone up.

In my view £850 is far too much council tax for a bedsit in Cwmbran and £1300 or even £2600 far too little for a giant £10m house in London.

The mansion tax could address this. Purely upping council tax would do the job better - as long as the excess went to a central pot.

People have been moving to London for decades now and this internal migration, not the super rich, or lack of housing, is what has pushed prices up to silly money.

If there were jobs in the regional cities people wouldn't have needed to come here in the first place.

Let's please encourage long term stability in medium sized businesses around the country so we are not left with the absurd situation we have now, where the only jobs available to the regions are in call centres and chicken factories.

I grew up in London and am fed up with people 'using' the city as a means to get rich and then go 'home', whilst hating being here and not putting anything into the community apart from the nouveau villages they have set up here which serve their own interests and ignore the real people.

So please feel free to leave if you don't like it, you will be doing everyone a favour and allowing committed Londoners to get on with it. Ironic that the vast majority of London families have now moved to Essex, Sussex and Herts because they can't afford the rat race here any more.

Please let's build up the regions and stop this inequality.

Tax? Who cares. It's tweaking again, makes no difference to the bigger picture. Labour needs a bold new vision of equality not more gentle tinkering with the status quo. I am actually really angry that they have missed another opportunity to do this. I think this is the last chance for the left.

Can we please introduce a tax for land ownership though (obviously excluding farmers, etc.). This may help against those landbanks that hold on to land to keep prices high.

in the last decade, the price of farmland has outpaced the price of prime London property.

could we tax non domiciles who buy the properties as investments and do not put anything into the UK?

whe my db lived in Thailand for 10 years' working, he couldn't buy a. property easily as is possible in the UK

could we tax non domiciles who buy the properties as investments and do not put anything into the UK?

they also don't use the services.

Let's please encourage long term stability in medium sized businesses around the country so we are not left with the absurd situation we have now, where the only jobs available to the regions are in call centres and chicken factories.

The most relevant suggestion I've read on this whole thread.

True. surely though if the government are getting stamp duty of 7% I question what the government is doing with all the stamp duty revenue?

I'm of the opinion that this tax is reasonable. If a similar sum was invested in shares/bonds for example you would be paying interest- why then shouldn't the same apply to property?

jellified - totally by your post - what do you mean, pay interest on shares/bonds and how is that comparable to a tax based on the value of a house you may only have 30% or less equity in?

I'm of the opinion that this tax is reasonable. If a similar sum was invested in shares/bonds for example you would be paying interest- why then shouldn't the same apply to property?

So, you think everyone should pay CGT on their principal residence? Because that's quite different from what has been proposed.

Actually - I need a [really scared] emoticon after reading jellified's post again, if it is representative of the general population's understanding of the mansion tax!

So far in the UK we have had tax on income such as rent, dividends, salaries.
We also tax capital gains when something capital is sold like a buy to let flat, a farm, a painting, a horse or whatever. Those capital gains used to make allowance for inflation now they don't but instead the CGT rate in return was reduced - currently 10% for many sales of shares and 28% for most other sales depending on your marginal rate.
We used to charge a tax on gifts - capital transfer tax but that was abolished.
We charge 40% on capital values at death - inheritance tax.

If you own shares and receive dividends you are taxed on the income not the capital value.

The mansion tax is different. It is a tax on an unrealised gain or indeed even on a property in which you have negative equity and have made no gain.
I noticed on Radio 4 today Nick Clegg was interviewed and he did say that they were proposing higher council tax rather than mansion tax so it sounds like it is right he has backed down over the mansion tax. Not Labour though. So we shall see.