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/

Completely ridiculous

Penalising people who are not a burden on the state is nonsense.

But he’s in the £2m house now, and that’s all the matters.

i bought my house for £400k. It’s now worth £675k. I can not believe how bloody lucky I am to have gained £250k just for existing. I literally can’t believe it. And I’ve housed myself for free! What kind of greedy fucker wouldn’t think the same when faced with making an absolute fortune through no work at all?!

1965? My parents bought their house in 1967, with a mortgage, for £6000. Neither came from money, my mum wasn't working at the time due to kids. They were frugal, saved hard, no luxuries like expensive cars or holidays. So no not well off.

I think this is a London and the SE tax and it's already costing a bomb to live here and salaries don't cover the difference even with London weighting, it's going to lose Labour a lot of London votes, it needs more nuance if Burnham wants to change how he does property taxes wholesale.

I mean it’s £2.5k a year, not as a one off.

He probably can find the money. Whether he ought to have to is another matter entirely.

I don’t agree with the politics of envy.
The trouble with a mansion tax is that while it is set at 2 million now, the. 2 million limit will not go up and with inflation everyday people will be dragged into it.
I agree with pp about tackling family trusts so that everyone pays proper IHT when they die.

the price of his property went up, where do you see that his income or pension went up too, and that he can afford £2.5k?

Your grand-mother has a house in a tourist location that became fashionable, does it mean she suddenly has extra cash for paying new bills because the house is worth more because the area wasn't so desirable when she bought many years ago?

The trouble with the mansion tax is that it will actually raise very little. So now what? Hmmm, better make it £1million. And then £500k… And that’s on top of proposed property taxes.

So now you’re quaking because you planned a loft conversion - better cancel that or you’ll tip over the threshold. And no new kitchen/redecoration/keeping the garden in order. Boo hoo, you might say. But this filters down to tradesmen and manufacturers.

But his house was 2.5x the value of theirs. So he was 2.5x wealthier than them.

MN is full of these people. They love the idea of a "rinsing" a "rich fucker". The thought of anyone else making it financially makes them angry

How does he pay his council tax? His heating bill? How does he maintain his garden, how does he pay for maintenance of the property?

thats the same place the £2.5k can come from

Nailed it!

Prioritising “penalising” people who have less, is just rubbish maths.

People who pay higher rate tax (myself included), higher property taxes, or even qualify for a “mansion” tax surely have to understand that that produces a larger cash injection than increasing taxes on the less affluent, and has less of a proportionate impact on their life.

If they don’t understand that, they’ve managed to make a lot of money by not being very clever.

But he hasn't actually made any actual gain yet has he, it's all "on paper"? To him it's the same house he bought all those years ago. In the meantime, out of his control, governments have implemented policies the mean other people 'may' be willing to pay more than that if it were ever sold, but at this point that is still speculation. So now other people want to tax him on their assessment of his paper gain, that doesn't seem very fair? Taxing it when the asset is bought and sold and has a real value is the only actual fair way

It wasn't accumulated through luck. He bought it many decades ago for what was a considerable sum in those days. All property has appreciated in value since then.

Why should it be redistributed? It's his and not anyone else's.

Because that’s how society pays for things

If you borrow money and dont pay it back it compounds - how do you think that is paid for?

Wealth isn't finite though. Growing the economy would lead to opportunities for wealth creation for everyone.

He may be cash poor. I’m sure he paid a lot of taxes throughout his life.
The government should be forcing able bodied people into work, investing in areas manufacturing plants to increase employment opportunities.
They cannot keep riding people who have money to death.
In 20 years there won’t be people who have money, much better to get the people who don’t work into employment.

I'm going to put it out there that most people in a reasonable society agree we should pay tax.

If you agree that too, and also agree that this tax should be fair and proportionate to wealth, then that's the principle I'm making when I say gains on homes should be subject to capital gains tax just like a gain on any other asset you own.

If you don't think people should pay tax or that the tax should not be evenly distributed or it should be for someone else not you, then we're starting from quite different planets, and yes indeed, I think I live on a different one :-)

Both these things are true and both are ways of raising tex revenue

Can’t wait for there to be enough growth in the economy for my children to get married next to the apple tree in my £2m Richmond home.

I can’t believe there’s even a thread about crying this man a river. I’m sure he’s a lovely man, great father, etc etc.

But he quite obviously has £2.5k a year. He doesn’t want to pay it, and that’s entirely different.

He would not need to move or release equity.

The government is proposing a payment deferral system to help those who are cash poor but asset rich - including pensioners on fixed incomes. They can chose to defer payment until the property is sold, or the owner passes away.

He’s poor though. He doesn’t have £2.5k. He accidentally ended up in a £2m
house. Poor people don’t pay much tax, if any.