Latest mansion tax should be on top % homes locally not nationallu

[Lionfisher]

Rachel Reeves is front running yet another class warfare policy in the press, this time suggesting everyone who lives in a home over £2m should have to pay 1% on anything above 2m.

First - I’m fine with this. I live in SW London and would probably have to pay some.

But I’m ONLY fine with it if everyone round the country does too. Meaning that it should be on the top 5% of homes by REGION (I’ll leave it to other people to argue what region means, all the data is there to do it).

We could happily sell our 4 bed home and move somewhere else in the country and buy a 10 bed castle. Or just buy another 4 bed home and stash the rest in the markets. TBH we might even do that if this comes in.

But people don’t want us to do this because it prices them out of local homes etc. Which is pretty much what this policy would do, price people out of local homes so they move elsewhere and prices up somewhere else instead.

But more than anything you can be far more rich on far less money in other parts of the country. So this isn’t a tax on property it’s a tax on the south.

As long as top X% of homeowners elsewhere are paying their 1% above their threshold I’ve no issues with this.

But people won’t agree with me as it’s easier to think it should always be “other people” who pay…. or will they?

Are you saying London council tax is low? I’ve no idea (I don’t live in London) but doesn’t CT just go to the local area? So London CT going up wouldn’t benefit any other areas?

They are compared to the views of the country though. The centre has shifted. I'd say RR s pocketing of everyone else's money and giving it to the public sector to placate the unions is pretty left wing. She clearly thinks she has a right to pinch our money. And Bridget Philistine's (,sorry...I know its annoying to use nicknames but in her case its just so apt!) war against children's education for ideological reasons is pretty left wing!

I don’t know about anyone else but I’m not currently paying any more tax than I was in June 2024. I expect I will be after the Budget - and most of it will be used to pay interest on the vast amount of debt the Tories accrued. Nobody apparently complained when they got an unfunded NI cut - I wonder why that is ?

the vast amount of debt the Tories accrued

How can you say that with a straight face?!?

Public borrowing in the financial year ending (FYE) March 2024 - when the Conservatives were in power - was £120.3 billion.

In the last 6 months, Labour borrowed an extra £99.8 billion. In 6 months! That's 65% more than the Conservatives.

And as for debt!!

Government gross debt in July 2024 was £2.8324 trillion
Government gross debt is now £3.0589 trillion. That's £226.6 billion more debt than when they came to power 15 months ago.

... compared to £91.7 billion added to the national debt in the last 15 months of the Conservative term.

Labour has increased UK debt by two and a half times as much as the Conservatives did in their last 15 months. Despite increasing taxes by a record 'one off' £40 billion last year... about to be repeated!

I mean surely you're not comparing debt accrued whilst the global economy came to a standstill - including 6 months where half the UK population didn't work - due to the global pandemic to... a very ordinary year when Labour should have been strengthening our economy?!?

All Labour know how to do is tax and borrow.

Absolutely.

Ignore the first few paragraphs, where they look at CT compared to income, which just makes the difference even more stark, and look at the tables at the bottom. Some of the most deprived areas have the highest council tax, and most of the cheapest CT is in London.

https://moneyweek.com/personal-finance/council-tax-burden-highest-lowest-uk

But is the argument that London CT should be put up and given to other areas?

That's extraordinary. And terrifying. But unfortunately no surprise.

Agree this will likely burn people in the south more. Such a divide!

We have a 1.5m mortgage just fyi

I’ve said this for years. I’ve no idea why they wouldn’t do this.

Council Tax is a local tax. If your area has more expensive local services then of course you will pay more. It's the only fair way of doing it. We already have national taxes that are redistributed disproportionately to poorer areas.

At some point, areas have to take responsibility for their own issues. It's why we have a move towards greater devolution of power and local democracy. You can't do this on the one hand and on the other say that actually wealthier areas should be funding all your local services. It's completely undemocratic for a start. Local Councils control local budgets and manage local spending and yet they would be massively subsidised by people in other parts of the country with absolutely no say over how their money was being spent. Local councils could be completely fiscally irresponsible knowing that others areas will bail them out.

All councils spend the majority of their money on social care. They're not providing extra services or making different decisions, even. It's just that poor places have more poor old people who need home carers on the parish.

https://www.local.gov.uk/about/campaigns/save-local-services/save-local-services-how-ps1-council-funding-spent

The pretence that councils are doing anything other than shovelling money into the quenchless maw of social care is absurd at this point.

Large houses should pay more but the amount is not going to make much difference to the care levels we get. Our area is well off but probably less than 5% of homes are over £2m , its not enough to make a difference.

I was doing a bit of a Rightmove stalk on someone I know who lives in Putney. Flippin’ heck - even a manhole is almost £2m there. Quite modest semi-detached houses are in excess of £2m.

Obviously outside London not so many £2m houses, so don’t think they aren’t coming for all the schmucks sitting in £1m, or even £500k “mansions”.

London councils already sting people for parking fines and high business rates left right and centre. That is how they make money. My neighbour got fined over Christmas for going into a bus lane to make way for an ambulance! She tried to appeal it and was told she got in the bus lane too early. That is what we are dealing with here now. You can barely leave the house without incurring some cost of some sort.

Apparently the mansion tax is to be £1m in Scotland - anyone could see £2m would not catch enough people! I expect it will be the same UK-wide before long. i foresee a full-scale property tax in the future, separate from council tax.

You forgot spend. They are very very good at spending.

Shouldn’t the ambulance of gone in the bus lane?

They excel at wasting money, rather than being good at spending it.

What is money being “wasted” on now as opposed to this point in 2024?

Why? Am not being obtuse or argumentative, just genuinely interested as to why larger houses should pay more, unless you can show they use more of the services. I've never understood the rationale

Why reference 2024? We all know the Tories were wasting lots of money too. The Tories were shit. Labour are continuing to the shitness. That that is why a third way is needed.

Labour need to be making improvements not just harping on about how it doesn't matter if they rubbish because the Tories were rubbish too,. Starmer has no ideas - his latest plan military gap year for under 25s is just recycling Rishi Sunaks National Service proposal.

OK, so what is money being wasted on?

Welfare is the main problem. We need to go back to the level of welfare support under the Blair/Brown government. This was considered left wing at the time. Now it has doubled. If it was taken down by 25% it would still be massively larger than the what the last Labour government got to after 10 years of centre left policies.