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/

Firstly let’s see them

secondly a whole house with a garden is not average in London anyway.

SDLT at purchase - but no current tax at sale

you are talking about CGT on your private residential home. currently there is an automatic relief so any gains here aren't taxable

some good reasons for this relief and not making moving home even more expensive.

the article you linked isn't a CGT issue. it's an annual tax because you live in a house worth greater than £2mn. there no sophisticated justification to it other than the idea of take from the rich to give to the poor.

the problem is deciding who is rich and who is poor, and how much needs to be stolen

… have you been to London?

Having a house with a garden is very normal, particularly for older people who bought many years ago.

It’s one of London’s problems (and also part
of its appeal and liveability) - very low density housing.

With cars, very few appreciate in value so no tax will be due on sale.

With stocks & shares, tax is paid on purchase in the same way that houses are subject to stamp duty on purchase (in fact, houses are usually subject to a much higher rate of tax on purchase than shares)

When you talk about “returns” on stocks and shares, if they are held within an ISA, no income tax or CGT is due.

Property is quite unique in requiring no tax for capital gains.

Incorrect. Only a main residence is exempt from CGT, ie a property which an individual lives in.

I’ve just sold the fourth property I’ve owned here and I’ve lived in over 20 houses in different parts

oh and I spent 20 years working in housing development in London too

so BRING IT ON QUEEN

To this, I put my below point. If you don't believe anyone should have any right to anyone else's money (and tax is a societal contribution of our own money by law), then you don't believe in tax. Which is fine - but it's not an argument we can really begin.

Yetone · Today 14:49
You mean the ones who will just leave the country if taxed too much, thereby meaning that the government doesn’t get any money at all from them.

They can leave, but most don’t. And contrary to common belief, moving doesn’t exempt you from UK tax on UK income. In addition, there is a new long term residency tail that makes you liable for certain UK taxes up to ten years after you have left the UK and not gone back (except for odd bit of NHS health tourism cum holiday).

Aware there are a few nuances - ISA allowances per year are tax free, and CGT does indeed apply for second homes.

However, primary property, which in this case has appreciated substantially in value, is quite unique among assets in not being subject to any CGT.

“Stolen”

😆 got to love how the free citizen movement has twisted being taxed into being robbed.

Then you would know that having a house with a garden is not unusual in London.

ONS data: 45.9% of households in London live in a whole house or bungalow.

A lot don’t want to work for anything they just want to take it from others under the never ending word , inequality . Well the only reason older people have done better is sheer graft , not blaming mental health for every bloody problem and not buying £1000 iPhones and new cars instead of saving . It’s a whole culture of inadequacy today and blame or take from others who’ve done the right thing .

So only benefits recipients should pay tax? Is that not counter to the purpose of taxation?

Oh yes the we done worked hard by gum mythos.
Perhaps forgetting the highest taxes were paid by your parents, you know the ones that beat the Nazis and paid for a World War.

it is, and you know it.

Buying something TODAY is a bit different from having bought decades ago and seen the price rocket.

Gosh such a convincing argument

We’re wasting a huge amount of money at the moment, not least on the NHS.
Governments should not be taking money from its people to chuck down the drain. Sort out the waste, address the ludicrous benefits bill, and then see what is needed from tax payers, but NOT and NEVER old people who have worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes, and just happen to have inadvertently accumulated ‘value’ in their homes. That is abominable.

Because London hasn’t been paying its fair share of council tax for decades.
Have you even looked at how London has insulated itself from most taxes?

How? By theft? Robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Okay, according to Indeed etc., the average salary for a professor is £80k/year.

The average salary for a TV exec producer is £54k/year.

The average salary for an advertising director is £70k/year.

Let’s be generous and round one of those up to £100k. Even at £100k, none of these individuals would be able to buy a £2 million house.

Hi Katie

IT WILL BE TAXED ON HIS DEATH!

Leave the poor man alone to enjoy his end years.

he IS paying tax.

People are pointing out that adding new tax out of nowhere is unfair.

You have a bog-standard semi detached somewhere, nothing fancy. Next door opens a top grammar school or top private school with George and Charlotte, the catchment becomes ridiculously exclusive, prices rocket and someone suddenly decides to make you pay mansion tax.

Bet all the posters on here who says it's fair and he has "money" to pay would sing a very different tune if they suddenly saw a bill in their name.

Some boroughs have low council tax because they can raise the money other ways.

Its not all of London however - the chap in the article will be paying high council tax, I think Richmond borough has one of the higher rates of council tax nationwide.

London pays a huge amount of tax, and it is this which supports the rest of the UK.

45% of households isn’t the same as the average is it? But I wasn’t actually thinking of the suburbs - Clearly some residential outer boroughs such as Hillingdon Bexley havering etc are very heavily house driven but they are also, let’s be fair, very short on £2m houses, so you want to include them in the number of houses with gardens available but forget the fact that most of them are nowhere near £2m.