Stamp duty

[MarmiteMania]

Looking to move. Yesterday we would have paid 5%- now it's 12% as we live in London. Is this actually going to do anything for the market here where most homes fall into this catagory?

[Greengrow]

Most people will pay less. if you buy at more than about £975k you will pay more and in some cases a lot more. One person completed before midnight the day the rules changed and saved £160,000 in stamp duty by rushing it through in the one day.

[Trills]

Yesterday we would have paid 5%- now it's 12% as we live in London.

This is NOT TRUE. You have misunderstood the changes.

The 12% rate is not on ALL of your house, only on the amount of house that is above £1.5 million.

So if (for example) you are buying a house worth 2 million, you aren't paying 12% on 2 million.

You are paying 12% on the half a million part that is above the threshold.

If you are buying a 2 million pound house, the amount of stamp duty you pay as a percentage of the total cost of the house is now 7.69%. Previously it would have been 5%.

It's like income tax. People don't pay 40% tax on ALL of their income, only on the amount that is above the threshold.

[Damnautocorrect]

I don't doubt you work hard, I don't doubt high earners work hard but I don't believe (in fact having been 2 down from director level at a Ftse 100 company, I KNOW) that they don't work harder than my partner or millions of others.

[Greengrow]

..oops over 12 not 123... I certainly by 6.30am am sending work emails. I do take a break to take children to school most days for an hour. I tend to finish about 10 when I go to bed. We need to deduct some time for mumsnet and getting food too....

Anyway I certainly don't doubt some people on low wages work hard - my cleaner certainly does but I rarely meet people prepared to work as hard as I do and I find that with other people who have been successful. Usually what we have had to do to get there is not something most people are prepared to do.

It is anyone's guess as to who will win the election. Labour might currently be on 52% but the polls have been quite unpredictable. It is all to play for.

[MirandaWest]

Am hoping the number of hours you work a day was a typo Greengrow (or maybe you actually are superwoman )

[claig]

'I guessing from your posts, THAT THIS MONTH is back to UKIP targeting the Conservative vote and piss off the Labour vote. LOL'

No, UKIP always sticks to its principles. It believes in rewarding aspiration and always has done. That is why it is committed to abolishing inheritance tax completely - no ifs or buts - and in reintroducing grammar schools, no matter what New Labour progressives think about it.

[Greengrow]

Damn - I do work every day though - your partner works 6 days. I work every day and it would be a rare day I did fewer than 123 hours work. I have had one week holiday this year. I am not saying everyone who works without maternity leaves, back at work last time the day after the twins were born and has worked without a break for 30 years will always earn what I do but it certainly helps. Also you need to pick work in your teens which is a rare skill, most people can't do it and is highly paid which I did. Not everyone chooses that.

I do stand my general submission that most of the highest earners tend to work harder than most of the lowest paid. Most of us have not had it handed to us on a plate and most of us have made choices that those who work fewer hours often would not be prepare to make.

[Isitmebut]

Claig ..... I guessing from your posts, THAT THIS MONTH is back to UKIP targeting the Conservative vote and piss off the Labour vote. LOL

Re poster coffeeinapapercup'scomment on 'vote UKIP get back Labour', you might find this link interesting, looking at four coalition scenarios from 2015 - and as you like to b-r-a-g how well UKIP are doing, in particular Scenario Number 1 - as it doesn't matter a rats tail WHAT UKIP THINKS OR PROMISES.

news.sky.com/story/1377174/uncomfortable-coalitions-or-chaos-ahead

[Isitmebut]

The Mansion Tax that many would have looked to avoid and put pressure on prices elsewhere (as per the link below) would have just been Labour's opening move on property taxes, when the Conservative coalition had already made sure the wealthiest pays more in 2012 - and now those below pays less.

“How households are preparing to avoid mansion tax”

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/10965835/How-households-are-preparing-to-avoid-mansion-tax.html

“Guy Meacock of buying agency Prime Purchase said investors were now "thinking harder" about buying property in London, while those with a second home were considering selling up and buying outside London for less than £2m.”

"The bulk of interest from my clients is in the sub-£2m market," he said. "Talk of a mansion tax has simply reinforced the appeal of that market."

“Mr Meacock said the main issue was that the tax proposals came "hot on the tail" of a number of other measures affecting housing. These include two new stamp duty bands introduced in the past five years, "non-domicile" tax measures and capital gains tax on foreign-owned properties.”

“Stamp duty, a tax on house purchases, jumps from 5pc to 7pc on properties worth more than £2m following a change made in the Budget of 2012.”

[claig]

'So piss of with your 'he doesn't work hard enough' line.'

The OP never said your partner doesn't work hard enough.
People aren't paid and rewarded for how hard they work. They are paid more depending on how rare their skills are.

Ronney is paid more than a footballer who trains equally as hard in the Third Division, because his talent is rare. A brain surgeon or investment banker is paid more than someone who digs flood defences for 70 hours a week because they have rarer skills and more people can build flood defences than do what they do.

[Damnautocorrect]

Bollocks does a high earner work harder than my partner, he's self employed has 10 employees, he works at least 12 hours outside the home 6 days a week, comes home eats his dinner as he's researching tomorrow's work.
Sunday is mostly spent running around for the next week.
Holidays???? A rare rare occurrence and then he's at the end of the phone and laptop.
All for the princely earning of under 30k a year.
So piss of with your 'he doesn't work hard enough' line.

[Damnautocorrect]

I think it will push the small flats round here up in value, they were at the £249,999 ceiling with two bed houses starting at £275,000. Now the flats will go over taking the houses with it

[Isitmebut]

In 1997 the Conservative government handed over to Labour and a Ed Balls advised Gordon Brown Chancellor, an economy they would have a balanced annual budget within a few years – and when Stamp Tax was applicable, a flat 1% rate, which then began to rise to 3% to 4% for a medium sized family home depending where you lived.

The Conservatives also handed over Council Taxes to Labour around 110% LOWER across the bands, than when the Conservative coalition came back to power in 2010, where once again, those in more expensive homes, or/and with families, were hit the hardest.

The Labour Party, I believe via John Prescott and using the likes of RightMove, was looking to re-rate Council Taxes, where extra taxes would be due on any HOME IMPROVEMENTS e.g. conservatories, better locations, views, anything that gave it extra value to the norm – but this was put on backburners ahead of, if memory serves, the 2005 General Election - and no doubt the 2010 election when looking to limit electoral damage.

So for a Labour Party, with Ed Balls now the Shadow Chancellor, to pretend that they are the party on ‘the squeezed middle’, when under Labour with form there will be MORE taxes on income, MORE National Insurance on income, MORE taxes on savings/home deposits, MORE taxes on buying a home, MORE taxes paid to the Council monthly – is frankly a bad joke, based on there own record in power, and in TIMES OF 1997 to 2007 PLENTY.

So when Mr Balls says to reduce the honking great UK budget deficit THEY left, he will make “different choices” to the Conservative led coalition, similar to 2010 without any new tax detail, you need just to look back to when Balls advised Mr Brown to know that no body is safe, as what may not affect you straight away, does later.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/houseprices/11004647/Stamp-duty-millions-more-being-dragged-into-trap.html

[claig]

'Looking to move. Yesterday we would have paid 5%- now it's 12% as we live in London.'

I am not rich, I couldn't afford a house like that, but so what? I think it is wrong. They have given people no time to plan or deal with it. Lots of rich people have worked hard and deserve their rewards. A supposedly Conservative party has hit them with an extra tax practically overnight without any warning, in part for their own electoral benefit and to stick one on Labour's proposed mansion tax.

UKIP would not do that. They would scrap the tax subsidies to aristocrats to erect useless windfarms on their large estates rather than taxing aspirational people who want to move house.

It is about principle, something that UKIP have in spades.

[Coffeeinapapercup]

Great plan. Vote ukip, split the conservative vote and hand the country back to the party that stuffed it up in the first place.

[claig]

MarmiteMania, you know who to vote for. UKIP.

They will abolish inheritance tax, reintroduce grammar schools and will not penalise aspiration.

[TeacupDrama]

If your 1.3 million house is heavily mortgaged say 75% that is 975,000 at A multiple of 4 or even more of annual salary that points to an income of over £200,000 a year that is wealthy, it makes you part of richest 1% within uk

I am not knocking you being wealthy, the country needs entrepreneurs etc but it rather grates on many if you pretend you are just much hard working, and not really that wealthy when you clearly are. Just because multi millionaire s exist which are richest 0.1% does not negate the fact that you are much richer than 99% of the rest of us
an NHS senior consultant would not earn that much and I doubt that senior consultant get to that position by anything other than a lot of hard work, well above 48 per week

[Coffeeinapapercup]

turned out disabled sounds horrible. He turned out to have a complex mixture of different issues

[Coffeeinapapercup]

Independent analysis has shown that deficit cutting measures have hit the poorest hardest. This isn't whether or not you can afford bigger house, it's whether you can afford new shoes this year. And you want to talk about fair?

Most high earners do work a lot harder than those who don't
Tell that to the mother who cares for a disabled child day and night for £50 a week carers allowance.
Or the shop assistant who works 40 hours a week then comes home and cleans and keeps a house.

I used to think like you in my comfortable five bedroom house. I "worked hard" therefore I deserved it. One bad divorce, a child who turned out disabled I know a whole lot better.

It's just a way of justifying ignoring the suffering of others.

There's a deficit its about time everyone did their bit. At least the bit associated with this tax is optional.

[MarmiteMania]

RadioBedHead if you drive all the higher earners to the airport, does that mean you're happy to pay higher taxes to make up the shortfall when they're gone?

Obviously it's a given that lower earners work just as hard. But there's a balance between making people pay a fair share of their earnings and taking away any reason to earn it.

[Viviennemary]

If you can afford a million or over for a house then you can afford the tax. No sympathy whatsoever. Stay where you are or buy a cheaper house.

[Trills]

Are you sure you understand it right?

I am very pleased with the changes - it makes much more sense for it to be incremental like income tax - this stops the problems of houses near a boundary being unsellable at that price.

[radiobedhead]

Hello X btw!

[radiobedhead]

Let's put inheritance tax at 100%. If 'working hard' makes you rich then why do you want your kids/whoever to get something for nothing? They just need to put in the hours don't they!

[FrontForward]

There are people working hard who don't get a holiday, don't own a car, don't go out ever, make do and mend their clothes, think carefully buying food.

You can be very hard working and really struggle to live. Lots do, so I struggle to sympathise with you OP however I do recognise that the timing of this is really irritating