Anyone else in the South East worried about Andy Burnham bringing in a land tax?

[Beachbooks]

With it looking likely that Andy Burnhan will be the next PM, I was interested to see if anyone else in London / the south east were worried about potential tax raises specifically around the land tax rather than stamp duty ?

A lot of my friends who live locally are worrying that he will make the land tax for the South East so high in proportion to other areas of the UK that it will be financially very difficult to afford but then also extremely difficult to sell!!

BTW we have very standard house and garden but we live in an expensive area

I am also worried a lot Andy Burnham generally but am in favour of anything that removes stamp duty, which hugely stifles the housing market.

Assets vs money is the age old - and highly successful - way that the economically elite and privileged in Britain manage to make sure that all discussion of tax policy is kept within the confines of fiddling a few pence here or there for the "little people", why the rich are largely able to avoid paying tax so much better than the middle class, and why nothing ever structurally changes to address the vast amounts of money being sucked out of the economy by unproductive rentierism.

Assets are just money kept in a more permanent form. Of course anyone worth a lot of money is going to have most of it in assets (which can make a passive income) rather than in money (which can be eroded by inflation). It's up to them to judge how permanent most of that can be, and how much needs to be kept liquid for day to day expenses like eating, bills and paying your tax. Indeed that's not just the rich - everyone who takes out a mortgage has to make such a judgement.

We don't know how much these "mental" extra taxes are going to be (if they happen at all) or how they're going to be distributed, so there's no basis for the hysteria about people having to sell their houses yet (which I'm sure won't stop the Tory press from producing plenty more of it). I expect factors like that would probably be taken into account in devising how the taxes are introduced.

But FWIW - yes, as a more long term principle, I don't have a problem with the idea of people sitting on massive expensive assets far beyond their needs having to downsize. That's actually one of the traditional arguments for Land Value Tax - that beyond a certain level necessary for living, it incentivises people to either use land productively (to the benefit of the whole economy) or sell it to someone who will.

Says I'd save over £1k a year. I won't lose any time worrying about it.

Absolutely. Think of it as a tax on all the additional benefits you get for living where you do (better infrastructure, better services, higher wages).

Sounds like an administrative nightmare.

How does a second class English literature degree qualify him to be PM?

A 2:1 in the early 1990s was a very different proposition to the same thing now. Firsts were like rocking horse shit then and employers avoided them because they were indicative of an academic out of touch with the real world.

Do you think this because he's northern?

Fantastic post.

'the chat where I live'

Which seats in London/SE do Labour hold and would Labour lose if they did this in a way that was unacceptable to a majority of voters there?

the chat where I live seems to be that he will slap higher taxes on the SE and London just because it’s the SE and London
Yeah, of course that's what " the chat" is where you live😅🤣

[misses entire point ]

This thread is making me hungry

Why would you only get credit for not using state education if you have children, out of interest? Just trying to understand the logic of not including everyone who has no children, or has no children in education in this.

Yes, hello Harrogate, we’re talking about you!

@overunderover That's actually one of the traditional arguments for Land Value Tax - that beyond a certain level necessary for living, it incentivises people to either use land productively (to the benefit of the whole economy) or sell it to someone who will.

all well and good but how do you overcome the sodding jobsworths at the council who won’t let you do anything with the land you have? It’s not as easy as just putting land to productive use. There are rules and regulations and, my god, they’re enforced on steroids for the little people. Heads the very rich win, tails the little people do what they’re told they can do.

It’s based on assessed value. For California assessed value can only increase 2% a year so if you bought when houses were cheap you’re potentially paying less than your neighbour who bought a year ago. However assessments and taxes go up every year.

You’re talking about central London, not the wider south east where services are shit, transport is also shit and the infrastructure can’t cope with the millions more people that live there.

Because children would be counted for the tax as members of the household, maybe at only 50% if under school age.

The land tax system is a lot better and fairer. Most European countries and large parts of the rest of the world do not use stamp duty but land tax! It encourages movement in the market and it taxes wealth.

London already pays for all your public services - London and SE are the only net contributing areas in the UK, which means they pay in tax more than they receive in services. All other regions, North in particular, receive government funding from the money paid by London and SE. Obviously it's not enough for you.

@Beachbooks , there won't be (or very unlikely) to be a higher tax rate on land value in London or SE, but because the value of land in these areas as so much higher, the tax amounts to be paid will be significantly higher than in the rest of the country.
So @MrsPapillon living in her 4 bed in North will likely pay a fraction of tax payable by someone living in a shitty studio flat in e.g. Wimbledon. But because of redistribution of government funds, as they already do now, that LVT paid by Wimbledon studio resident will go to fund wonderful services to the owner of 4 bed detached house in North.

Wasn’t that what Rishi sudmack was gleefully claiming he done? And wanting a round of applause for it.

Meh, can't get excited about that when it already happens for people in rented accommodation built after x date, where they pay a huge amount of council tax compared to a Victorian villa valued in the 1990s.

Someone living in Westminster is currently paying virtually no council tax for services that are the envy of the rest of the country.

So it's nothing to do with garden size then just what your house is worth. I thought ours would be more but the link above says quite a bit less.

@nearlylovemyusername “North in particular“what are you talking about? Liverpool, Manchester, all the wonderful cities in your country? Stop whining.

Ah, thank you.