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/

Council tax goes to their local authorities. They get the services they pay for, and no more.
Why should they pay for services YOU directly receive? Pay your own.

Envy. Leave the poor fella alone, he can pay out if his estate if people really want his money. At that age he shouldn't be dealing with this and sometimes when getting on to this kind of age, he may be more vulnerable to making poor choices or being ripped off.

His estate will already be liable to inheritance tax.

They’re not chucking it down the drain, that’s a myth, if you follow the money it’s flowing up into the pockets of the top percentiles.

The view that there is rampant waste and so health and welfare should be cut is to expand the current pattern of wealth re-distribution from the middle to the top to be from the entire lower 98% to the top 2%. There is also an elite top 0.1% that is taking the lion’s share of the wealth flowing upwards.

Can you release equity at that age? Surely not (sounds cruel but …)

Her point is they were high earners at a point where housing was much cheaper. Therefore able to purchase a more expensive house than most.

ie it’s not a cleaner and a bus driver who accidentally ended up in a £2m house

lol, that’s just it, the richest London boroughs are not paying their way.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8431/

to see how the system is worked.

The only change I might make is that the charge could be deferred until death subject to say 4% interest. I think that taxing properties above £2m at a higher rate is fair and reasonable.

Well tbf from a lenders point of view it’s probably the ideal age 😂

I think if almost 50% of the population is living in one, that’s pretty average yes? How could you argue otherwise?

Everyone already pays income tax, VAT, corporation tax, National Insurance... on money they earn.

I love how some people just want to add more and more layers of tax on what has already been taxed, let's just add mansion tax, inheritance tax... Because it's so easy to be generous when it's someone else's income, isn't it.

Who is going to be envious of a pensioner so poor they don’t have access to two grand?! If that was my retirement I’d be a ball of anxiety every day

Richmond borough is ~£5k a year for band H.

What about the fact that where most of the houses are they are worth nothing like £2m?!

know many pensioners in Bexley sitting on £2m terraces do you?

He paid tax on his earnings to buy the house. His family, if he still has some at his age, will be paying approx 40% inheritance tax on anything over their allowances. And now people want mansion tax.

Is there any point at all in working hard and buying a property to live in if so much of it goes to the treasury? He may still have to pay his nursing home fees too if it comes to that.

Maybe it’s council tax that needs reforming then.

I’d say having a home that you chose and enjoy would be a pretty high motivation 🤔

@SummerFeverVeniceOnce taxation becomes vindictive and too high it feels like robbery. Taxation at reasonable levels has always been accepted but we are a highly taxed nation. For many, a tax like this will be an unplanned burden and who values the property? Who will say £1.9m vs £2.1m? If you have a house without easily comparable ones, who knows the true value? Vindictive class based taxes don’t work because they definitely stifle ambition and divide society. Hugely undesirable outcomes.

Not far off!!

My street is a great example (albeit priced lower than £2m, still insanely priced for what it is).

Those who have been there 50 years are teachers, a cab driver, someone who owned a shop nearby, a mechanic. Lots of single adults living alone.

Those buying them now are dual income couples where at least one is always a senior financial / technology professional plus another big second wage. You need a very high income to big one now - thirty years ago anyone could really.

Really? Because I am beginning to see there's not much point. My own parents went without holidays, ran old cars, rarely had a takeaway in order to pay off their mortgage. Perhaps they'd have been better to ask for social housing instead and enjoyed all the nice things in life with their money.

What about people who have bought homes recently – paid income tax, paid stamp duty, and will pay capital gains tax / inheritance tax. Their wealth may be entirely tied up in an asset that isn't "unearned" (ie. increased value) but that they have worked incredibly hard for.

I didn’t say a £2m house was average.

I was reply to your comment: “secondly a whole house with a garden is not average in London anyway.”

I can’t imagine how bitter and miserly one would have to be to refuse to buy a home because they’ll be taxed on it when they die.

Who even thinks like that? Surely people think about how and where they want their children to grow up, where their friends and family live, having the rooms they need, being able to remodel or decorate creatively, being as close or far away from people as they chose. Not tax.

Plus, you would need to be alive then to do it!
He's not going to be dragged of to prison for tax evasion. His options are to do equity release now, cough up the money another way (it is quite likely though not definite he also has a reasonable pension etc), or wait until he dies and the taxman will take back the amount owed plus fines. I don't wish him ill and Insure he's a great person. But equally I don't think being old automatically makes you a victim or should make you exempt from paying the same property taxes others pay.

And I was replying to a post that said an average house in London was £2m. So that’s what I’ve been talking about. You’ve taken a side comment and invested in it

Share token, just in case one hasn't already been posted for the article:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/98a4e6ea9d251085