Mansion Tax at £1.5m - what will this mean?

[MaureenOHara]

Does anyone have any idea what this might mean for an individual and what it might do to the market. What happened to the £2m market and will that be replicated or is it different?

I don’t think you can means test the pension. What incentive is there to work in that case at all. I can see the arguments for getting rid of the triple lock as the intention was to raise it initially and it had its place in time and history. But means testing state pension? People will just think what next, state schools, NHS etc? They are already taking from those contributing the most financially. It will lead to the collapse of society if you remove all universal benefits.

I agree with you on both.

You can if you plan ahead and give people tax breaks to invest in their own pensions. Then you can just get rid of pensions altogether and use universal credit for everyone. You can’t just means test though out of the blue as it breaks the social contract between Ni and the pension. Well, I mean, they can do that but would be political self destruction!

What does it matter where has the most homes affected? A poor and damaging policy is bad for everyone.

But investing in your own pension relies on the global financial markets, whereas a state pension is a guaranteed amount and as we have seen it is somewhat linked to overall cost of living rises. So you want people to take market risk and pay for everyone else who gets security? I think that is the social contract truly broken. People will buy insurance etc and contribute knowing they will benefit if X Y Z happens, not otherwise. Universal income is not going to work, that is socialism and people are too self interested.

Looking at Germany, the AFD apparnetly is Russia friendly. That is the most salient and interesting point of all. The electorate here is dumb. Labour need to focus on national security primarily now and the electorate need to wake up and the burden needs to be shared across all facets of society and people need to find for our value system. People were very clear about our values post WW2, the rot and apathy has kicked in and entitlement and taking peace and freedom for granted.

Norway have state + part compulsory + most importantly = part tax break incentivised so that people are encouraged to save more into their pensions.

Their system isn't perfect but on this they are considerably better than us. You might be able to get rid of the state part completely if you incentivesed it in the right way.

A means tested system only works if people are motivated to work and are able to find a job!

if they got rid of the triple lock the black hole would shrink considerably

Council tax has been wrong for 30 years.

£20 million houses paying the same tax as £500,000 ones makes no sense at all. Owners of high end properties have been subsidised by large amounts, probably almost totaling the hundreds of thousands given the time this has existed for. No other tax in our system has got it so wrong.

Why ? Well because council tax was implemented by the Tories, who wanted to shovel money towards their voter base.

This mansion tax might go some way towards redressing the balance. But what we really need is reform of council tax - the reform proposed by Fairer Share seems appropriate to me.

As far as I am aware Burnham has previously supported this before getting into power so let's hope he implements it. It will result in the majority of the population paying less, while the owners of valuable properties pay more. So should be a vote winner.

It’s a payment for local services. Ik the push is for ever higher taxes on the same group, but it’s not working. You keep needing more.

Just one in five new homes built in London are now sold to British buyers as developers seek to offload more properties to investment funds, new figures show.

The number of sales to individual UK buyers slumped between April and June, shrinking from 49pc of deals to 21pc, as flats became largely unsellable through traditional channels, according to data company Molior.

With developers increasingly concerned they will fail to sell to individuals, more and more are seeking to bypass potential British buyers completely and are targeting corporations instead.

In total, 69pc of the new homes sold in London in the three-month period were offloaded to overseas investment funds or housing associations, more than double the 28pc rate in the same period in 2025, the figures show.

What subsidy? Each council works out the cost of services for their own local area and charge accordingly. Why should someone in Westminster pay towards the bin collections of someone in Hull? The people in Hull are not subsiding the people in Westminster.

As you say it would have to happen with a long notice period. Which means it would save current and near future governments absolutely nothing. So what is the incentive? They will continue to kick the can diwn the road.

The pensions bill will eventually start to come down naturally, won't it? There will be fewer pensioners in subsequent generations once the Boomers have gone.

I am often down south and understand the house price differential. Although southerners often fail to recognise in these conversations that a lot of them have benefitted from enormous growth in house prices, whereas people in the north generally have to more actively pay down their debt as house price increases are much more modest. So although I get the ‘my house is worth £1.5m but it’s just a terrace, it would buy a bigger house in the north’ complaint, ultimately they still have an asset work £1.5m and they have often benefitted from dramatic increases.

I know a lot of people in the south on modest incomes who have made a fortune in property, so to suggest that it is all hardship doesn’t quite show the whole picture. Obviously accepting that getting on the property ladder itself is more challenging these days.

And why should people in an efficiently run council pay more because other people live in an inefficiently run council. It takes away the point of local democracy

Yes you’ve put it well. It’s the cost of local services.

But the point is for years we haven’t been fair to the younger generations, we have to address that imbalance!

And you believe that’s Labours aim?

For a start young people need jobs. Not a gov that hammers SMEs and hiring.

This is the problem - we can have as many graduates as we can get but if there aren’t any graduate roles then what is the point. The best thing to help the young is economic growth and that isn’t achieved by hammering older generations or banks or the middle classes

we have existential problems in the labour market that Labours working rights bill is hardly going to touch because they’re looking at yesterday and not the future world of work. My nice middle class job won’t exist in 20 years

IIRC a lot of the cost of local services is actually met by central government.

The policies so far have had a detrimental impact on jobs, but yes this too. There’s no interest in what’s coming, bar from Sunak but people went with Labour.

“£20 million houses paying the same tax as £500,000 ones makes no sense at all. Owners of high end properties have been subsidised by large amounts, probably almost totaling the hundreds of thousands given the time this has existed for. No other tax in our system has got it so wrong.”

@GasPanic - Sorry but this is just so factually incorrect! Stamp duty on a 20 million property is now £2313750! Paid upfront!
The Tories just front loaded it all onto stamp duty already didn’t they.
Stamp duty on expensive properties rose exponentially in the last 20 years. Top tiers introduced, additional surcharges etc etc
It is much better for Central Government to get cash up front.
This minor mansion tax of £200 a month is neither here nor there. The problem is the distrust towards what happens with new taxes. Everybody assumes that they will trickle down to lower levels and the amount will be raised. Whether it isn uni fees, or stamp duty etc - once introduced successive governments just keep raising it.
London and SE already subsidises the rest of the country via taxation, most people already struggling to get on the property ladder and Labour’s suggestion is to cause a further property crash here, destruct value and confidence all in an area largely already populated by foreigners (over 40% born abroad). Flight of wealth and talent is an actual real risk, just as there is a WW3 brewing on our door steps. And some of you are clapping along. Naive doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Tackling intergenerational inequality” is an important objective. There is no proof that taxation of particular groups or assets more heavily will do this.

How has VAT on private schools fees worked out or Student loans against their objectives? What about the large scale unintended but entirely predictable consequences.

London house prices haven’t risen much since 2008. Both the financial crisis and Brexit has been detrimental to the London property market and especially flats. The people who have recorded large gains are the older generation. Those 40-45 and under is far less likely unless they bought somewhere that gentrified and made substantial changes to a place via own risk and effort.
So again, trying to get at the old but punishing the younger workers who are meant to be having families.

London experienced insane house price growth from 2008-2016.

It’s the decade since then in which it has slowed.

I remember that 2008-2016 period - property prices in London almost doubled, wages did not.

Now I think they are really losing value vs inflation. Prices are noticeably quite stagnant and properties seem to take a long time to sell.

A lot of anxiety around stamp duty, mansion tax, interest rates etc - alongside a smaller pool of buyers thanks to Brexit.

Most people I know are just in their starter home, the upgrade to the next house is too big / risky.