AIBU to think a £2m homeowner should pay mansion tax?

[LadyJos]

Anyone read the Telegraph Article about the 93 year-old man paying mansion tax on his £2m Richmond Home he bought for £15,000? AIBU but isn't £15,000 to £2m a fairly good return over 60 years, and shouldn't he pay some tax at the end? I can't help thinking since the home is mortgage-free, he has options here to pay the £2500 a year...
‘I’m a 91-year-old veteran about to be dragged into mansion tax. This is wrong’
www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/house-prices/91-year-old-about-dragged-into-mansion-tax/

Imagine if he had some kind of asset that he could realise some money from?

Do you want him to sell his home to pay?

His home will be taxed when dies, as party of his estate. Can you not wait that long?

You must be aware that selling a house and moving are one of the most stressful life experiences. You want a 90+year old couple to go through that?

Envy is a horrible trait.

£15,000 was a fortune 60 years ago.

He's always been well off

How do you know what his options are to pay it? Are you saying he should sell up just to pay this tax?

I own my own place but it's very cheap flat so I'm all for it.
Not sure how I'd feel if I was in his position🤷🏻‍♀️

Equity release does not require either selling or moving

You can access the equity of a home without selling it or moving, just like we can all can pay council tax without selling our homes.

The £2,500/yr is just increased council tax to equalise parts of the UK where people in £300k homes are paying more council tax than people in £14m homes.

I think it’s long overdue.

Why is it everyone wants someone else’s money . Always those who don’t have to pay anything baying for other people to .

Sure he can go into tax debt with HMRC, the interest clock will tick along and it can be paid from his estate after death.

While I feel for him, he does have options. Having the flexibility to sell and still live in a very decent sized home is one. Equity release without moving is another. And you're overlooking the immense ROI of £15,000 to £2m which he seems to feel entitled to in its entirety?

Well, these are people who currently should contribute more to the Treasury as they have unearned wealth that they accumulated purely through luck.

The money isn’t for me. But a civilised society has to redistribute wealth in order to reduce inequality. For too long we have allowed inequality gaps to widen.

That luck could be something anyone can do . He’s not superman he’s bought a home years ago the same as anyone else could have done .

Ah two of the deadly sins on show.

So you want an old man to be sorting out equity release just because you’re so impatient to get your hands on his money?!

He’s already paying council tax, but you want more?

What a sleazy world we live in.

I have mixed feelings about it. The govt is horrifically short of money. So it’s trying to grab from fairly soft targets. I can’t read the article as it’s behind a paywall, but it could probably be seen as a case of clobbering citizens who’ve done the right thing their whole lives. This guy doesn’t seem like he’s the super rich, accumulating massive amounts of assets, it just seems like he’s living off asset income. So he’s not harming anyone. That said, he is probably able to find £2.5k. Whether he should have to is quite another matter. We already have council tax bands and I suppose he would be top band, so paying more anyway.

I think as long as the govt taxes people who Joe Public perceives to be richer than them, there will be no public opposition. Like private school VAT. Problem is with that, one day they’ll come for you and me. And there will be people who perceive us to be well enough off to suck up whatever tax is invented next. I haven’t been the victim of private VAT/mansion tax/the employer NI rise or any of it. But I do think targeting strivers and people who have done right and good is probably not the way to go.

I want to see the issue of family trusts tackled. It’s disgraceful that IHT is really only paid by estates just about rich enough but not rich enough to have all the avoidance mechanisms of the super rich. The super rich are actually gaining more and more and more. And that drives up everything - house prices for eg. How many motherfuckers are owning 200+ properties in a housing crisis for eg. Those are the ones that need bashing. Not this guy.

I suspect three.

As pointed out by a previous poster 15k was a very expensive house in 1960.
It is not the case that the average person would have been able to buy a house of that value at that time.

We might have to redistribute wealth yes, but the likes of this guy aren’t the problem.

This is such a rational response. So often in these debates the people who shout the loudest about what other people should do with their money, are those who aren’t being asked to part with any of their money.
this isn’t easy - expecting a 90 year old to move out of their home just because they’re rich isn’t fair.

Wow. I hope when you get old no-one comes for you like this.

Also, sadly not everyone here could have bought a house sixty, forty or even thirty years ago and ridden that good luck wave.

Why is it always a fucking race to the bottom in this country?

Everyone criticises extremist parties in that they turn us against our fellow man to detract from the awful
policies and chaos politicians themselves have brought about…and here it is happening again. Tax the rich! Make them pay! Well, we wouldn’t have half a bad an economy, affordable homes shortage etc if the macro was sorted out. Instead, they divert eyes to the micro.

It’s not that 90 year old man’s fault a 20 year old can’t get on the property ladder.

is it the mansion tax or his age that you have an issue with?

The thing is, in Richmond a £2m house is basically a 4/5 bed terraced / semi.

Elsewhere in the UK it would just be considered an utterly normal home.

So my challenge to the mansion tax is - why are we penalising people who live in already expensive parts of the country, because the housing is more expensive there?

This guy bought years ago and has just ended up in this situation - but even for those buying them now… they will already be paying very significant amounts of income tax, stamp duty will have been £100k+ etc to purchase, and no doubt they are servicing a huge mortgage too.

So while I appreciate the argument of taxing wealth, I think this also taxes aspiration for those of us living in London.

Between this, stamp duty and possible LVT (alongside the insane prices and high interest rates) - I’m basically giving up on trying to buy a better house in London. The cost so spectacularly outweighs the benefits / effort required to achieve it - and it seems there will be even more creative ways to penalise this group.

I haven’t made money through property price inflation - I’ve had to earn it, yet I’d be hit with it too.