There is about five trillion £ worth of unmortgaged property in the UK. That’s a lot of untaxed wealth the government will eventually tap into.
Can you let me know where the tax free houses are? (Asking for a friend)
Do you really expect people to believe that £5 trillion of unmortgaged property is somehow £5 trillion of “untaxed wealth”? The majority of those homes were bought out of income earned by people who paid income tax and NI. Many also paid stamp duty and took on a mortgage. Mortgage interest generated profits for lenders, on which they themselves were taxed. Then there is the VAT and further economic activity generated through decades of extensions, renovations, repairs, utilities, insurance, lawyers, estate agents and tradespeople. That before we consider the value created by people who settle in an area for long periods of time.
Paying off the mortgage doesn't suddenly erase all of that and turn the house into “untaxed wealth”. As convenient as it seems to be for you to pretend that. Sure there is a perfectly legitimate debate to be had about whether housing assets should be taken into account when assessing entitlement to means tested benefits, particularly where someone has substantial accessible equity. There is also a legitimate debate about whether large gains in property values should be taxed differently. There is also an argument for the elderly to still pay NI, many do pay tax. But those are very different arguments.
If your concern is the windfall created by rising property values, then address the windfall. Taking the whole current value of a mortgage free home, and labelling it “untaxed wealth”, so you can to justify supporting disproportionately taxing the people who happen to own them has nothing to do with fairness and reason and everything to do with greed and envy. Many of those people spent decades putting already taxed earnings into their homes, while that spending generated further jobs, profits, taxes and economic activity.