I am not questioning the valuation of property, rather the simplified manner in which some would interpret wealth and one's capacity to release it.
UK General Election 2015 | Conservatives win with an overall majority
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I am not questioning the valuation of property, rather the simplified manner in which some would interpret wealth and one's capacity to release it.
It's not though. ~130,000 homes built in 2013, ~200,000 in 2008. Of course the Conservatives are going to criticise Labour's rent control policy, and the answer is to build more homes, but the Conservatives have presided over the lowest levels of house building for 70 years. The intellectual dishonesty on display is staggering.
Are you saying that to the billionaire oligarch or the middle-class family in the suburbs, they are one and the same to Labour or soon shall be.
The middle class family in the suburbs.
£2m is an awful lot of money. I'm really finding it difficult to have any sympathy for someone who doesn't want pay what is a tiny amount of tax in comparison to that figure.
Hmm, i'd go back and ask those focus groups again if i were you.
The ones made up of middle class families from the suburbs?
I just found it interesting Nick that was all and when the conservatives introduced the bedroom tax do you think they were taking income from people who could easily release their wealth?
Absolutely. And if you were not separately well-off you would have to be a bit dim not to sell.
What level will the threshold have dropped to 10 years from now? And that doesn't factor in those homes that will have fallen under the tax due to market forces.
This report by Knight Frank makes some good points: http://content.knightfrank.com/rese.../taxing-high-value-homes-mansion-tax-1530.pdf
Labour doesn't even intend to dedicate the revenues to housing or the districts from which it originated, the MT is poorly thought out wichever way you look at it.
It's a garage, yo.
Also as far as I know, the mansion tax isn't the same for everyone that's over £2m. It's just the start point for the tax. I imagine it'll be fairly progressive. The stuff about "grannies who've had the house for 50 years" is emotive nonsense about issues that can be fairly easily written around in any legislation.
It's dedicating it to the health service, which is also fairly important.
I don't know, I'm just really struggling to sympathise. If I had a £2m pound house, I'd be planning my retirement on some exotic Island not complaining about another bloody tax.
Whether it's the best policy to do it, I don't know, but it's not hitting anyone who shouldn't be paying more tax.
Whilst i could sympathise with an intent to make housing bene3fit more...efficient, i thought the bedroom tax vastly sweeping in nature (a combination of lazy/cheap policy). Leastwise, such is my recollection.
Dunno. Would have thought it would have been post WWII tbh.
Don't get your point? These people have taxpayer funded housing, it's not about 'their wealth'. The application of the rule was obviously poorly executed- eg the lack of discretion around disabled people's needs, but do you really think that the taxpayer should keep funding some old woman's four bed house when all of her kids have flown the nest? Particularly when suitable housing is in short supply.
Yep, let's just tax the rich more and more despite endless studies proving it is counter-productive. It's already driven a bunch of hedge fund guys overseas (google bluecrest and alan howard). The indebted nature of the government has seen the Tories widen the tax net (despite what you lefties might think). The threshold for higher rate tax has fallen from about £39k to £34k under the Tories- £34k is not a huge wage in London.
Does this rule factor in mortgage debt? If you have a £2m property with a £1.9m mortgage, it does not mean you are wealthy. The figure is so arbitrary and so SE-focused. For wanker Ed to say he'd use all that money to fund the Scottish NHS is a massive turn off to all the cnuts in the SE having to pay it.
Doubt the cnuts in the south east will be voting for wanker Ed anyway.
Undecided on voting between the Greens and not voting at all.
I like Labour but not their politicians, nor do I trust Miliband to run the country.
The Tories have grown on me but I still don't trust them.
The less said about Lib Dems the better.
Can't stand UKIP at all.
I like Labour but not their politicians, nor do I trust Miliband to run the country.
The Tories have grown on me but I still don't trust them.
The less said about Lib Dems the better.
Can't stand UKIP at all.
If you can afford a £1.9m mortgage you can afford a few quid on mansion tax.
That's bollox. Given London house prices, people are mortgaged to the hilt. They are already whacked by stamp duty so introducing a new tax on top seems like a racist cash grab from the Saudis and Russians, if anything. The fact it is ongoing is offensive- a house you live in does not provide an income, so levying this tax is petty. At least make it a tax on second homes, ie if you don't live there for six months+ of the year- that will catch the oligarchs.
How's it bollox? If you've got a £1.9m mortgage you've got an income in excess of £500K/pa. Pay your tax.
More and more and then some! The more who leave, the better, I say
I like this policy Jippy. Don't tax so highly as to drive them away, but as high as we can for the benefits it will bring.
Someone with a £1.9M mortgage on a £2M house would be paying around £10,000 per month on their mortgage (assuming standard repayment periods & interest). Hard to imagine someone who could afford that but not afford the £250 per month that the mansion tax would bring.
Push it down to £1-1.5m however, and allow for a decade of appreciation in property prices...
An, yes, to prop up friend Murphy's campaign in Scotland. What about the necessary affordable housing for all of those poor Labour voters in the regions from whence this money came? It's more important for Labour to give a well-off person a good kicking i suppose, or serve vested political interest elsewhere.
Breaking: Labour proposes bill that would criminalise happiness in the south of England - party activists to lead mass burning of snowdrops across the home counties.
Yes, I'm sure someone getting taxed an amount extra proportional to the value of their home when over £2m is really 'a good kicking'. It's bullshit like that and the stuff from Klass that removes any sympathy, acting like the very rich are the ones hard done by when they benefit from the present regressive system already. Maybe the south east (where I'm from, as it happens) has to pay a disproportionate amount because it has a disproportionate concentration of the wealth. We're a United Kingdom after all, amounts raised in one region dont have to be spent there alone. Unless the south east wants an independence referendum of its own any time soon.
Yeah they can take the jobs they create with them too. It means these companies are no longer paying corporation tax, the wealthy employees are paying tax in Switzerland and spending their money in some other economy. Dunno how a net loss of billions to the exchequor is a positive.More and more and then some! The more who leave, the better, I say
Why not just amend the stamp duty brackets instead of making it such an obvious populist grab from the rich?
Yeah but we are close to the tipping point with some high profile billionaires having already left. They might get away with taxing a bit due to sterling's weakness but that won't last forever.
That's a separate issue imho, and a severely important one, especially to me as I live in a village with 45%/50% second/holiday homes and the town over the river has nearer 60%. A neighbouring town has jumped in the last 10 years from 50% to near 80%. During those years it lost its rugby and football clubs and its fire service, it now has to rely on neighbouring fire services, the nearest being 25 minutes away. The school in my village had a healthy 50 (yes FIFTY) pupils, but recently couldn't even get that so now has to bus kids in from the next town. It's a rant I could go on about considerably, but this isn't really the thread.
It's the same in many places around the country, but i'm not sure what can be done about it.
It gets rid of a load of greedy corrosive cokeheads in the process. It's worth it.
Are you in Devon or Cornwall? Can imagine the second home craze rips the heart out of communities and turns them into near ghost towns for much of the year.
They need to be heavily taxed for sure.
On a sidenote, Lib Dem's new tax proposals to cut the deficit only on the 6 o'clock news at 6.23, after a Tesco suppliers row. Shows how far they've fallen.
Yeah, if we're going to tax people for being rich, let's at least do it properly and just tax their entire net worth.
Yep all rich people in finance are clearly massive cokeheads. A lot of the top hedge fund guys are professor types and hardcore mathematicians, not bloody Gordon Gekko. Why not just banish the rich and have a country of purely menial workers?
We do already. Stamp duty is an evil tax. We had to pay thousands when we bought our flat. Paying to escape the clutches of mercenary landlords and/or not being a burden on social housing.
In Devon, as my location says
Ghost towns is the only description you can use. However it's a really complex issue and even in a small area the effects are completely different from one place to another. I think though, going in to it properly would completely derail this thread.
I'm using my phone- can't see locations and post counts etc..! Agreed though, is a whole separate thorny issue.In Devon, as my location says
Ghost towns is the only description you can use. However it's a really complex issue and even in a small area the effects are completely different from one place to another. I think though, going in to it properly would completely derail this thread.
Sorry, was only messing anyway.
One thing I will say though is that it really pisses me off when there are more and more homeless people popping up everywhere. It never really appeared to be a problem here, well, a family moved down from Derby once and moved in to some caves, but generally you didn't ever see any homeless people unless you went to Plymouth or Exeter. Now Torquay for instance has quite a problem with homeless people. To think they are probably sleeping 2 minutes from a house that someone uses only twice a year.
Cause that would be mean. However telling them they can either start giving us a good chunk of their money or go play with cuckoo clocks gives them the choice.
You should develop and app that tells people what homes are empty most of the year so they can just crash there.
They pay 40% tax on their salaries and bonuses, massive amounts of stamp duty on property purchases, loads of VAT on luxury purchases and their companies pay shedloads of corporation tax.
What more do you want? Surely you'd be better helping unproductive members of society into work etc...