Council tax & stamp duty reform

[PeonyPatch]

Who is in favour of this policy?! I think I might be…

But currently someone like me who has a big standard ex council semi in a Northern City can be paying the same as someone with a £1million + property in Westminster… that doesn’t seem fair either so it does need reform it’s garbage right now!!

I see what you’re saying and it shouldn’t go too far the other way there should be some way to means test somehow

We built our house. How would that work?

That £1million pound flat/studio in Westminster is going to be nowhere near as big as your large ex council house in the North. The person living in it may have have bought it 20 years ago, having scrimped and saved to pay the mortgage. They may have had 2 kids since and still living in the tiny flat. Is it their fault that property prices are so high in London and the South East?

If they go ahead with this, they should work it out on average prices in the local authority area so that someone living the good life on a decent salary in a big house in the North doesn't get a free ride because they live in a cheap area and we're lucky enough to get local jobs

Bear in mind, they never change anything to benefit us. They change how they do things to benefit them and to charge more money. There will be no winners other than the treasury if this goes ahead. Yes, council tax is unfair, it charges way too much!! But you can bet the new way of charging will be more. Council Tax should be reduced, not a new tax that will cost more brought in. Taxed on what we earn (42% stolen off us) taxed on what we save, taxed on what we spend, taxed on a house we bought with money we’ve already been taxed on. Get the idea? Reform should be about removing at least half of these punitive taxes that keep a hard-working population paying out most of what they earn to them. Modern slavery.

So anyone who rents won't contribute to local services? How will that work??

Precisely! So will have even less interest in the LA spending money sensibly. Just another way of Labour gerrymandering the benefits vote.

Those people exist but are absolutely not the majority. I lived in London a fair few years prior to relocating back up north and worked various customer facing jobs. There are plenty that do have money so I would suggest it’s done on property value but obviously an area that includes somewhere like Kensington would take in ££££ so could increase the existing council tax means tested support that already exists meaning the people you describe would pay a heavily discounted rate and the politicians/celebs/ property tycoons could pay their fair share

In theory at 0.44% property value tax I'm going to be over £1500 a year better off!

At some point did the council tax valuer not come round, assign it a rough market value and start you paying council tax?

I would be too!

I’ve heard figures of 0.5% been thrown around of property value for the proposed new tax. That’s a huge increase from council tax

It would be pretty much the same for us using Zoopla’s valuation of our house.

We had a property in Spain and we paid more because we are foreigners fair enough). Our property taxes were less than 300 euros a year and our refuse collection 7 euros every two months.
So how come I need to currently pay just less than 3000 in UK for Council Tax?

So, our house is valued at about 650k. If we were to move into an equivalent property we would pay 3k a year instead of stamp duty. If we stayed in that new house for 20 years we would be paying 60k in tax (assuming the figure never increased).

Fortunately we've paid stamp duty on our property already and this new tax only comes into effect when you buy a new property so it wouldn't affect us unless we moved.

This would definitely put me off moving house. The only people I can see this appealing to is those who know they have only a few years left to live. Anyone younger who fancies down sizing will end up paying far more in tax.

'cos that's how it works!!

Are we saying my council tax - over 3000 a year -will be replaced by a % of house value, capped at 2196. So I'll be over 1000 a year better off - house way under 500k.

Sounds brilliant.

Being cynical it’s a great way to stimulate the current sluggish property market. I wonder how many people would rush to move so they pay stamp duty?

I have plenty of friends in less salubrious parts of Haringey who bought their 3 bed mid terrace houses in the 90s, bust a gut to pay for it and now find its worth over a million on paper but they are by no means rich and Wood Green is not glorious. They still need somewhere to live. The same house would be £125k in many parts of the country.

So do people who rent get services from their council for free?

That’s fine though and if there was an element of means testing for support they should pay a reduced rate.

Im just saying it ideally should link to value as starting point.
there is currently support but pretty much only for those on benefits whereas in my make believe world it would extend more less all the way up to average uk wage for example.

people like your friends shouldn’t be disadvantaged and it should help people on lower wages in the capital

What? Why would this be true. It’s linked to the value of the property you’re living in so if I rent a bedsit above a chippy I pay a lower amount if I rent a 5 bed detached with a huge garden I pay £££

It still has a market value?

Our house is worth north of £1million and I think this scheme is great. We’ll pay less council tax as the council tax replacement is only on the first £500k, and we won’t pay the SDLT replacement as it wouldn’t be applied to house sales if the owner has already paid SDLT. It’s a great scheme that means that any long term house price rises in the future will have some tax due on them even if they are main residences, and avoids double taxing.

Also assets are valued all the time for probate purposes, it’s not difficult.

The rent would still be proportionate to the value of the property. People don’t pay the same rent for a one bed in Yorkshire as they do a 5 bed in Surrey.

Landlord will have to pay it, rather than the tenant, and I assume the LL would pass costs onto tenants via rent.