To think an annual property tax is incredibly unfair?

[Itchthescratch]

I come from an area with low house prices. It is great! My friends can generally afford houses even with lower salaries as the earnings:house prices ratio is better. Rents are also lower so they have proportionately more disposable income.

I have moved to a more expensive area where house prices are higher and people have really had to push themselves to buy a property. Salaries are higher but not high enough to make up the difference. They have had to pay more stamp duty , pay more interest and have less disposable income each month.

I am really struggling to understand why my friends in the South should also automatically be paying more property tax under the new proposals being suggested by Burnham supporters? What is the justification? They would love to buy a large detached house for £300k like my friends from home but this isn't possible. It feels like they are being double penalised.

Just to add house prices haven't risen in real terms in the area in live in now for 20 years so the value of my friend's houses is simply money they have paid in.

“Besides being prohibitively expensive, it means you are forced to rent unless you're sure you will stay in the place for many years.”

Stamp duty may be expensive, but it doesn't necessarily force you to rent. Most people on a normal wage choose housing security and buy where they can afford rather than where they would really like to live, because every £ paid towards your own home is £1 more in security and £1 saved from lining a landlord's pocket.

The irony of the Fairer Share or evrn mansion tax is that you might be able to afford to buy in an area but wouldn't necessarily be able to afford to live there for a long period of time. Because today's value of your home decides your tax, not your salary, which decides what mortgage you can get. Keen to hear your thoughts on why today's valuation is a fairer measure of someone's ability to pay than the mortgage they could afford when they bought the house?

Ask anybody who has bought their home in the last five or ten years if they could still afford to buy that home if it came onto the market now. Especially in overspill areas, where people priced out of more desirable areas nearby start buying, pushing up prices in your area.Yet your ability to afford to continue living there hasn't necessarily "increased".

Fair point - I’m unfollowing this post now 😉
The voting result speaks for itself.

Although I will say that the South subsidises the North as we pay more income tax.

The irony of calling the OP "triggered".

Is there a rule on how long a thread can run for, or whether it can be about something that has happened or could happen?

Or can it only run for as long as it meets some arbitrary standard set by you?

There is no obligation to continue reading or posting. If you don't like what you see, in the words of Dionne Warwick: "Walk on By."🎵

outside of London, Labour has little support so they conclude that they can simply tax people there more and it won’t affect their vote.

They are relative and have gone up and up

Here in Ontario Canada you have the option to pay your Property Tax yearly, half yearly or monthly which saves a bloody great bill once a year. Again based on area and price of the house.

Most of us pay our council tax in ten instalments.

there are plenty of pensioners that pay their council tax annually in April, instead of in areas through the year

council tax can be set up for quarterly payments or half year along with 10 months, 11 months and 12 months in some cases

there are plenty of pensioners that pay their council tax annually in April

Only the ones who haven’t invested their money sensibly. The interest’s better in our savings account than the council’s when we can pay it from income.

They were the pensioners still dealing in cash and trooping to the post office in April to withdraw the money from their post office account and pay using the barcode in the post office all at the same time. The are often the pensioners that do not do any type of credit or debt and want the entirety demand paid at once.

No self assessment in my neck of the (American) woods. And no armies of assessors either.

Assessment is handled by the office of the county assessor, an elected post. Residential units are assessed based on recent comparable values, the data on which is available to the assessor periodically throughout the year as deeds change hands at time of sale.

Different sections of the county are subject to reassessment on a periodic basis - maybe every five years or so. You can appeal your new assessment. It's quite a legal cottage industry. Also, the assessor can be voted out of office - it's always a hotly contested election here.

People in some parts of the suburb where I live pay as much as $50k annually. Most pay a lot less. The public facilities and services that are provided by the portion of the tax that goes to the local municipality are superb.

Increases in taxes to fund local municipal projects are subject to local approval via referenda. Keeping this level of local control over the tax is extremely important in maintaining public confidence in the concept of property tax, at a fundamental level.

There are some elements of life in the US that nobody in their right mind would want.

But local control over locally raised taxes isn't one of them.

New taxes always have massive unforeseen consequences. If council tax is changed it will be a disaster. Those old enough to remember when council changed to Poll tax will remember that.

Conservatives have never been forgiven by many (including me) for trying that, and it was one of the things that ended Maggie. My council tax doubled by the time the Poll tax had been and gone. And I lived alone then

Sure there will be winners and losers, but isn’t the key point about council tax is that it’s meant to pay for the local services. Not be a wealth tax? A family of the same size and age should in theory consume similar council costs (police, fire, schools, roads etc,) irrespective of the value of the house.

Council (and other "Government" employees have pensions that most of those who pay for them can now only dream about. Paid out of council tax. Sort that out first. But they wont because of the unions

Obviously sure there will be local effects between areas, but larger homes pay more anyway via the higher council house bands. As many have said already living in a larger/more valuable house doesn’t automatically mean you have more disposable income

There will be many consequences. Just watch what happens to house prices close to or over £2m

Council (and other "Government" employees have pensions that most of those who pay for them can now only dream about. Paid out of council tax. Sort that out first. But they wont because of the unions

Many local government pension schemes are currently in surplus and they compensate for lower salaries. “Sort that out” would mean salaries would have to increase.

www.barnett-waddingham.co.uk/comment-insight/blog/surpluses-in-the-lgps-cutting-through-the-noise/

Do you think we have the skills for a devolved power? What about places like Blackpool?

I understand people in the US are used to it but the system won’t be the same here. A wealthy area won’t get to fund its own services under Labour / Burnham.

To the same extent that is, eg schools.

This is a super relevant point. There would be much less pushback if this annual tax was spent locally as at least you would be a direct beneficiary of the changes that would be funded with your money alongside other members of your community. Will I benefit in anyway from Blackpool receiving a chunk of my money? Any potential benefits are built on a whole load of very optimistic assumptions.

We know that economic subsidy can help deprived areas but only in specific scenarios where it is effectively targeted. Blackpool already received tens of millions pounds in subsidy and grants but we need to be realistic. There are cons associated with pouring huge amounts of money into areas including creating a dangerous level of dependency on state funding whilst redirecting money from other areas that need it too. I live outside London but in an area where it will likely see money siphoned from the annual tax and given to other areas. Our Council is on the verge of bankruptcy. Half of London Councils face bankruptcy by 2028. Just because housing is expensive, it doesn't mean that local services are superb and there is excess money to send elsewhere

Yes there’s been a few posts on the US system but if it was the same then then the wealthy areas would ring fence taxes for better schools and services.

There’s no way Burnham’s Labour will do that. So when someone said on one of these threads it meant they had a high standard of living in US it was due to higher property taxes being fed into the local area only.

The taxes sound like they can be quite high so it would be a wealthy area of London paying more but getting much more.

I read yesterday that it has been realised there are not enough £2m houses to make the mansion tax worthwhile, so it may be brought down to £1.5m. I flippin’ knew it! Give it a year and anyone owning any solid construction will be told they’re a mansionaire…

I was also thinking about the householders whose village has had 2,000 asylum seekers moved to an MOD place there. Apparently no one can sell their house - zero viewings or interest. Now, how are they going to rate those homes? 2025 £900k, or 2026 15p?

This ia hardly surprising they always move the goalposts. From having a £40billion blackhole when they started to then another £15b blackhole.

People are naive if they think 0.48% will last long it will increase anytime there is a blackhole to fill in the budget which is every year at the current rate.

My understanding is that highly priced homes are especially difficult to sell lately, ergo those (purported) £1.5 m houses may actually be worth far less in today's market

The black holes will keep coming, along with the sanctification of dependency, whether working or on benefits. Any calls for scrutiny of whether the system is fair, efficient, affordable or actually achieving good outcomes will keep being treated as heresy.

1% land value tax to be announced on Thursday as part of a wider range of tax changes apparently:

www.cityam.com/burnham-told-to-launch-100bn-tax-reform-package/

This all sounds great. Tax reform is massively needed in this country. I say that with a tax policy hat on while weeping at the extra tax that’ll have to pay on housing. Might be balanced out by getting a personal allowance back tho!

It’s a letter and report isn’t? Not policy announcement.