Remove exemption of first homes from capital gains tax

[Gittins Gal]

One bit I do agree with:



Our towns centres are filling up with charity shops (which pay no business rates as I understand it) plus crappy stuff like dodgy nail bars or Polish food shops that are of no interest to most of us. We need to go with changing times and technology. Internet collection points are a good use but otherwise why not turn empty places back into residences?

PS There is a ridiculous reluctance of local authorities to allow change of use. I know cases locally where pubs and shops make no business sense and have been struggling for years. The owners want to turn them into flats but the local authority just won't let them.

Hmmm...inneresting.

This is exactly what Eric Pickles is addressing in his latest initiative

Link

Former warehouses and factories will soon be converted into new homes under plans to be unveiled by Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary

He talks about pushing for relaxation in planning regulations with respect to brownfield sites. Presumably high street shops and businesses also qualify as brownfield sites.

I'm all for it - whether or not it'll see the light of day is another thing.

Mr Pickles has a bit of previous in this department. He seems to be the government's attack dog who they wheel out to appease us frothing at the mouth country dwelling NIMBY folk. He's already made promises about turning the tide of onshore wind farms but they're still springing up at such a rate that some the countryside round here is bristling like a porcupine with wind turbines.

[VectraMan]

But you are not better off are you, because most people sell in order to buy somewhere else.

If you hadn't bought the first house, you'd have to start with paying a lot more for the second now inflated house. So you are £100K better off than somebody who didn't buy, because they would have had to pay £200K whereas you'd only ever paid £100K and got another £100K for free.

I think what xog says is that to move from one house to an identical house somewhere else, it would cost you roughly 25% on the national rise in house prices, which is about threefold over the past 15 years.

An average 70,000 house in 1999 is worth 180,000 today, so for the poor sod who wants to move to work in another city it will cost £28,000 extra.

So the longer you've lived in a house, the worse off you'll be. I don't see how that is equitable at all.

Is that what it means? I would take "profit" to mean if you sell a £200K house and buy a £200K house you haven't made a profit yet. It's only when you die/downsize/sell for some other reason that it counts as profit. Otherwise yes I agree that example would probably just result in nobody selling (though you wouldn't be worse off the longer you stayed, you'd just face a bigger lump sum).