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.

The problem with taxation in the UK is that many top earners own businesses or "are" companies. Celebrities, Consultants, Advisors etc, get taxed at Company rates which are much lower, and can get many tax concessions within the business, all perfectly legal and allowable.

The super rich £10m + are very hard to tax because they can choose where to live, many pay tax in a tax haven. They dont get the benefits of living in the UK but can well afford to pay themselves. If you are expecting to get much extra from them forget it, until we have a global unified tax agreement, they will move country. Jeff Bezos of Amazon brags that he pays virtually no tax

I agree but they have two issues

1 Far too many people are caught in the benefits trap, either in work doing low hours in minimum wage

2 Or they are young people with qualifications who are stuck doing pub jobs because they can't find quality jobs.

And thats a huge issue lack of quality jobs that aren't within the public sector. SNP are doing nothing to encourage employers.

Aww, boo hoo. You've obviously never cared about poor people, so why should we care about you?

How much income tax do you think I paid last year? I know all about poor. I grew up poor. Guess what, if you study hard and school and uni and in professional exams then you too can escape being poor. Takes effort though.

There we have it, the old Tory maxim of ‘I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and so should everyone else’.

I grew up poor, and now earn over £80k. I was clever and worked hard at school and university, but it’s still sheer luck that things turned out well for me. The most likely best outcome a kid from my background could hope for, with all the structural barriers in my way, was deputy manager of a shop or maybe office manager if I’d really worked my way up.

And I’d probably feel I was harder worked as a deputy shop manager than I do as a well paid professional.

Well... sometimes. If you don't have to care for your younger siblings or have a chaotic home life with no time or space to study and are lucky enough to have good health and live in a city with opportunities (including things like free bus travel to school, free lunches, etc - paid for by higher taxes in Scotland). Probably not if you grow up in foster care and move house every 3-6 months and are hurt by people meant to be taking care of you over and over again and if you are caring for your physically disabled mother while looking after all your siblings.

Yes of course people can restructure their entire lives and every single day there's someone who achieves more than their family before them - but there are many, many more people who aren't lucky for loads of reasons outside their control. Plus obviously millions more who cannot do all this because of physical or psychological challenges.

I remember the SNP promise of 18 kids in a P1 class... just before an election. Never happened.

So is this mansion tax set in stone then? Or is it subject to elections!

Unfortunately for today's generation a degree isn't a guarantee of a quality job. Never mind getting the experience required to do professional exams.

How do you know?

Don't be silly.

They are unbelievable. I saw the aid. Grandstanding twats.
Unless it all goes to their mates like Humza did.

not "unusual" but probably less than 0.5% of all properties in Scotland so at the very very top end of Scottish property.

"mansion tax" clearly annoys lots of people, and as I said above i think there should be a full revaluation (or a different approach to local tax generation as the SNP have promised on multiple occasions), but 8 council tax bands are insufficient to fully reflect the breadth in value of properties available.

on rightmove I can find flats in Edinburgh for under £100k and houses over £2million, is it really reasonable to only use 8 bands to divide those property values?

Most likely an SNP government not Green so might be OK!

But with all taxes like that with a fixed figure, the figure will not rise with inflation it will be a years later, by that time it will the the top 20 or 30% of houses caught up in it.

indeed - which is why i said it would be better to do a full revaluation with new bands at the top...

And you know, some idea of how much this extra tax will be might be nice!

But I thought as John Swinney made the announcement it was a done deal regardless if the Greens win enough votes or not!

Indeed. Just like their ludicrous stamp duty rates. They probably know full well how economically damaging their stamp duty policy is, but are addicted to the money, have no way of rowing back and so we’re stuck in a situation where buying a house in a nice part of Edinburgh is only for those that have huge chunks of cash lying around.

You’re right. The greens said they wanted this policy but the SNP went through with it in their own free will. It’s going to happen, greens or no greens.

I could only dream of affording a £1m property in Scotland! Maybe if I win the lottery 🤣

In the meantime, will just stick with my incredibly modest 4 bed (mortgage free).

OP move to a cheaper property if it bothers you this much. Don't let Greer get to you. Only good thing about Green Party was the Young Scot Card!

My area is littered with English folk buying up property in all the detached new build developments popping up - that's because locals cannot afford to😂

What about people that have owned their property for 20+ years on a modest income that will be pushed into this bracket? Those are the people I feel sorry for. They haven't physically payed £1m for their house, maybe even less than half that but through no fault of their own are dragged into this horrible tax.

Well vote with your feet then?

No one is forcing you to stay.

They don’t need to live in a big house though. Families need more space.