Vince Cable calls for mansion tax in next Budget

[Freamon]

It is "progressive" in a sense that people with more expensive house pay more council tax.

But they don't. After a certain threshold (whatever the highest value band is), the more expensive your house is, the less tax you pay (as a percentage of your wealth). That is not true of income tax, where you still pay the same percentage of your income as it increases. Council tax is a flat rate regardless of the value of your house, once you are in the top band.

I don't know what cretin started using this word "progressive" as I can't see any progress this tax takes. Say if CGT was low to encourage long term investment then it would be progressive tax even if it goes down with amounts claims, ie: 30% for first £100k, then 20% for next £1 mln etc.

Progressive means it redistributes wealth more evenly. You can argue about whether or not that is a good thing (I think a certain amount of redistribution is good, as long as it's not so much that it discourages entrepreneurship). The opposite is a regressive tax, where the wealthy get to keep a larger percentage of their wealth than the rest do. Council tax is a regressive tax.

It's irrelevant because it wasn't the houses worth £2 mln or more that caused the crisis - it was "average" prices house that gone up in price and affected lots of people, THAT is the cause of crisis and even if nobody was able to buy £2 mln + mansions it would not have stopped crisis from happening - people who pay for such expensive houses are liquid and don't take mortgages they can't afford.

A land tax would discourage speculation at all levels of price. Imagine if the spekulants who bought 10 newbuild flats to rent out had to pay a land value tax on all of them, annually? They would think twice about owning more housing than they strictly need for themselves.

The main point is not this mansion tax, but the fact that Vince Cable's job has got fook all to do with it - what has he actually done in nearly 2 years so far? FOOK ALL - the only visible thing is that he closed down regional Govt proxies to invest into local communities like Advantage West Midlands whose posh building I can see out of our much more modest office, yet nobody from there run any strikes - I can only guess civil servants there were paid off MASSIVE redundancy payments to go quietly.

What else did Vince do as Business Secretary?!?! FOOK ALL.

I'm not the biggest fan of Vince, but at least this suggestion moves us in the right direction. I would also point out that the Vickers report would probably have been much more of a whitewash had Vince not been so vocal about bankers mistakes and banking reform.

[DimPrawn]

Here's another reason why it's a stupid tax.

Many of the > £2M properties will be owned by wealthy foreigners. As such they already avoid paying the stamp duty on the purchase by purchasing it with a foreign domiciled company, and they will avoid paying this "mansion" tax in a similar fashion.

The only fookers paying it will be the English middle classes living in London and the posh bits of the SE.

[Doggy Styles]

How much would this raise for the Treasury?

There can't be that many £2 million houses.

In which case it just looks to me like a politics-of-envy tax from a lefty political party.

[Freamon]

Here's another reason why it's a stupid tax.

Many of the > £2M properties will be owned by wealthy foreigners. As such they already avoid paying the stamp duty on the purchase by purchasing it with a foreign domiciled company, and they will avoid paying this "mansion" tax in a similar fashion.

The only fookers paying it will be the English middle classes living in London and the posh bits of the SE.

You don't have to be a foreigner to do this - a very high percentage of purchases over the £1m mark, even by locals, have used this scheme over the past couple of years. It's become almost standard.

Obviously for the mansion tax to work, they would have to remove this loophole.

[Freamon]

How much would this raise for the Treasury?

There can't be that many £2 million houses.

In which case it just looks to me like a politics-of-envy tax from a lefty political party.

Not all taxation is about raising money. You could argue that "not many people smoke anymore" so there should be no tax on tobacco. The tax is there to encourage behaviours that the govt wants to encourage - for the greater good of the general population. Encouraging people not to hoard shelter that they don't need for themselves is another example.

[Paddy]

Certainly the c^nts I know with such properties have full time accountants and their property or properties are owned by offshore companies. If a large house is worth over a million; all that is need is that it is split on paper to be two separate properties owned by two different offshore companies.

There should not be any property tax.

What is needed is income tax and corporation tax reform. A flat rate of 20% for everybody with no expenses. Do away with complicated accounting and bureaucracy. It works in other countries

[TheFaQQer]

Vince Cable is the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary how the fook mansion tax has got any relevancy to his job!?!??

In the same way that the idea of what to buy the Queen for her jubilee has anything to do with the Education Secretary.

Actually, St. Vince has significantly more relevance here than Gove does to the jubilee.

[SueEllen]

Certainly the c^nts I know with such properties have full time accountants and their property or properties are owned by offshore companies. If a large house is worth over a million; all that is need is that it is split on paper to be two separate properties owned by two different offshore companies.

There should not be any property tax.

What is needed is income tax and corporation tax reform. A flat rate of 20% for everybody with no expenses. Do away with complicated accounting and bureaucracy. It works in other countries

Your proposal ensures that extremely wealthy foreign nationals who do use things like bins and streets when they do visit their London home get away with paying nothing at all.

While at the moment they get away with not paying council tax, mainly due to council incompetence in chasing debtors, they are legally obliged to pay council tax.

What the government needs to do is a revaluation of the council tax bands in England and put in more bands at the upper end. That way if someone does split their property into two, four or ten they can chase for council tax on all of the apartments.

[Freamon]

Your proposal ensures that extremely wealthy foreign nationals who do use things like bins and streets when they do visit their London home get away with paying nothing at all.

While at the moment they get away with not paying council tax, mainly due to council incompetence in chasing debtors, they are legally obliged to pay council tax.

What the government needs to do is a revaluation of the council tax bands in England and put in more bands at the upper end. That way if someone does split their property into two, four or ten they can chase for council tax on all of the apartments.

Why not just make it an annual charge on a percentage of the value of the house/flat?

[DimPrawn]

Why not just make it an annual charge on a percentage of the value of the house/flat?

Like this you mean?

Cyprus Property Law: Immovable Property Tax