Mansion tax concerns

[Bilberrybeaut]

The Greens are proposing a mansion tax in the budget, with a rumoured proposed value of ‘mansion’ of £1m. I’m really concerned that this might happen. If it does it would be the final straw for us. We earn well and already pay hundreds of pounds more EACH MONTH in income tax than we would if we lived in England. Our stamp duty was tens of thousands more. A truly insane amount of money. I am taxed so highly that my marginal tax rate is 67% and yet the Greens think I’m not paying enough tax. How much is enough???

If they want to squeeze even more tax out of us we’ll leave. You cannot keep coming back to the same people with the begging bowl. It has got to the stage when they are taking the piss. We’ll go to England and be hundreds of £ better off every month.

But that’s plausible conjecture isn’t it? I’d like some certainty about it, or even a timeline for certainty.

Wouldn’t we all, or at least wouldn’t 0.4% of us.

So annoying it’s like you’re not allowed to complain about the tax or someone says why don’t you move to England! It’s not like it’s not higher tax payers country too. Unbelievable why don’t all benefit people move to England then our taxes could go further.

Yes, let’s all blame the sick and disabled.

Nothing to do with the decades of corrupt government that has allowed so much of our wealth to be handed to so few.

Well said 👏

You can’t have it all . Someone has to pay for the free university places, free prescriptions, cheaper utility bills, higher teacher and NHS salaries etc. Your house prices are cheaper than down South and life is definitely not cheap.

well it’s pretty rude to just tell people to leave their home if they complain about having to pay very high taxes. Baby boxes free tuition only if you come from the right socioeconomic group. It’s ridiculous. LBTT is ridiculous.mansion tax is ridiculous.

Growing the Scottish economy would be a start surely?

Well that would be sensible, but under this government that will never happen. Next big tax rise coming our way. Council tax.

Or we could not have all of these things? It’s an option you know. I don’t want these things, I want to pay less tax instead. When get a prescription I want to pay for it. I pay and get something back. I know that those who can’t afford it will pay nothing, and the amount paid by those with regular prescription is capped. Just like England. When I pay this endless tax is just all seems to disappear into a black hole, to be used as a piggy bank by the corrupt government we have.

in what way are our utility bills cheaper? My house is cheaper than a similar on in London, but not cheaper than one in say Bristol, York, Manchester, Leeds etc.

Higher teacher and NHS salaries are all good and well for those receiving them, but haven’t improved services received have they? Our NHS costs SO much more per person, and yet the service is worse than in England. What are they doing with all of this money? How could they get isn’t so badly wrong. The mind boggles.

There’s SO much waste in this country too. Such a staggering amount. Take a small think like the NHS app. The English nhs app was produced 7 years ago. You can check all your personal details, make appointments, order prescriptions etc all in one place. They said Scotland could use it. The Scottish government turned their nose up and said they are doing their own one. This Scottish app has cost £16.7 million so far and isn’t due to be fully operation for another 4 years. All because the government wanted to be more Scottishy.

These people just hose taxpayers money around, then whine when it runs out.

I hate the term mansion tax, this is a land tax which everyone will eventually have to pay all over the UK.

Or we could not have all of these things? It’s an option you know. I don’t want these things, I want to pay less tax instead. When get a prescription I want to pay for it. I pay and get something back. I know that those who can’t afford it will pay nothing, and the amount paid by those with regular prescription is capped. Just like England

So you end up having to administer a system in which some prescriptions are charged and some are not, meaning extra cost, which means more tax spent managing this, precisely the reason charges were done away with entirely in the first place, i.e. it's cheaper for the government and therefore the taxpayer.

when I pay this endless tax is just all seems to disappear into a black hole, to be used as a piggy bank by the corrupt government we have

Which "piggy bank" is this then?

Unlike the absolute shambles at Westminster, the Scottish Government can't borrow in order to overspend, can't run up Trillions in debt and effectively devalue the entire nation, and what little money they do carry over from one budgetary year to the next is normally no more than a few million.

If you know of "corruption" in the SG, I suggest you report it to the police.

Our NHS costs SO much more per person

Yes, as has already been pointed out to you, this is in keeping with the umpteen demographic reasons why public service costs more to deliver per head in sparsely populated nations than it does in more densely populated ones.

and yet the service is worse than in England

Not by any of the established and recognised metrics it isn't. It comprehensively outperforms it's counterparts in other parts of the UK.

I totally agree. For the people that support this so called tax on the rich in principle, what they don't understand they are offering themselves up to be taxed eventually in the future. If your house is worth 1million or 1 hundred thousand it will just become a sliding scale at some point once the concept has been introduced. That is why everyone should be opposed to this ludicrous policy, but some people are just too filled with hate and envy to see it that way.

Yes but many of the minority who pay tax in Scotland don’t benefit much from this stuff. Having to pay for private GP appointments and prescriptions to avoid running out of essential medication because of deficiencies in state sector, private eye surgery to avoid going blind waiting on NHS, or for knee or hip replacement, having to pay for tutors ( no chemistry teacher for a year in state school in exam years) or even independent schools etc, potentially having to pay English or overseas university tuition as paid places at Scottish unis are capped. …… etc etc

It’s not even the wealthy that are paying for their own hip operations anymore, it’s anyone who can possibly scrape the money together. Just the same as those scraping together private school fees for SEN kids. Paying yourself for essential services that are supposed to be provided by the state.

Free university places is an absolute joke. The universities are so severely underfunded with their £2k per year per Scottish student compared to £9k per year for overseas or rest of the UK students.

Currently have two children in university, one started in Covid and had a whole year of "online learning" 2021-22 because the university was so over-cautious. No support, nobody answering emails, no "personal tutor" until his final year, classes cancelled regularly, just appalling. DD is at another university on a course which required placements, it took 9 months to initially sort out her PVG and there have been admin issues with every placement she's done because when someone goes sick (on generous public sector sick policies) there is no money to replace them.

We absolutely DO need to allow universities to start charging fees. And scrap the stupid baby boxes for all and target support to those who need it. Agree also on the App - during covid it was the same, we needed an all special Scottish app which didn't "talk" to the English app because the Scot Gov couldn't get it through their tiny skulls that people move between the two places.

Not everyone in London is rich or lives in Westminster.

People who bought years ago run-down/ no go areas of London could now be living in £2m homes on ordinary incomes. The same is true of people who bought wrecks on ordinary
salaries but spent money renovating those homes making rhem habitable again. They could easily be living in £2m houses. Current values to salary are a reflectiom of policy failure not necessarily ability to pay. The government treats paper value as real wealth, and forcing council tax bills from c£5k to c£12k pa is not making it affordable for many people. They will now be forced out of the homes and communities they helped build and stabilise for the crime of staying put or making a home habitable.

The mansion tax is going to make housing more expensive for most ordinary tax paying home owners and renters. The rich will be just fine.

The same arguments used against a £1m+ tax could be used for a £2m+ tax in the south east.

The fact that both taxes will affect about 0.4% of property in the respective countries shows this.

A £1m house in Edinburgh would cost a lot more than £2m in an equivalent area in London.

So as long as only 0.4% of the population is screwed it's ok?

But that aside, as you well know, now the tax has been accepted it wont stop there. So all we are really arguing about is timing...

Everyone will pay more.

That's my objection to the tax in Scotland and England, its a wolf in sheeps clothing.

Not necessarily.

Council Tax in Scotland is fundamentally ‘Frozen in time’ based on property values in April 1991.

So any new build has to be assessed on what the value of the house would have been on that date.

Although at first glance this seems odd it is a sensible way to do this as it isn’t viable to continuously assess properties.

So if you’re worried about a sliding scale of tax it’s unlikely to happen, if a house isn’t assessed at a million in this exercise then tha will stay that way for a very long time, the fact it’s been built into council tax shows this.

Really unsure what your logic is when you say ‘everyone will pay more’?

Obviously tax rises are always a possibility but fail to see how a general rise can be linked to this policy?

You don’t think that having established the principle of however they’re doing the valuations, they then roll that out to other bands, with net benefits in taking more in council tax? I can absolutely see that happening.

and really yes the council tax system with the 1991 valuations is indeed a joke. But if anyone thinks reforms will result in a reduced tax take, I’ve got a timeshare to sell you..

@Meeplemakeglasgow the system they use for new builds is really unfair.

The scale the current price to a price in 1991 and then compare what properties selling at that price in the local area at that time are banded. Doesn't take any account of current values.

So the comparator for my two bed flat based on it's off plan purchase price at the height of a property boom was a four bed victorian garden flat.

Whereas the properties that are currently selling for the same price (other two bed flats) are all banded B or C whereas my flat (and the others in my block) are banded F.

The comparator property from 1991 is now worth approxiamtely triple the value of my property.

I took it all the way to a valuation tribunal and lost because the methodology is the methodology. I now warn people about buying modern property in Edinburgh city centre as you get gouged on council tax.

Don’t disagree, if you have a spare few hours to go though the rest of the thread I talk about how instead of just adding this tax it makes more sense to re-do the council tax valuations.

They’ve made a few attempts to standardise the assessment process but it’s a total postcode (and surveyor’s mood!) lottery.

I think it should happen.

The 90’s valuations were done in a very different time and a very different housing landscape.

Frankly they aren’t fit for purpose anymore and many people are either paying too much or not enough.

Areas that have become very gentrified over the last 30 odd years are stop paying tax at the same rate as areas that have went into decline.

The new build assessments aren’t really standardised and this has left comparable properties with very different rates.

A re-assessment would be fairer and would likely generate more tax than this mansion tax proposal.