mansion tax
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Latest property news
Tory MP calls for Chancellor to consider single ‘property tax’ to stimulate market
John Stevenson says replacing Stamp Duty and Council Tax with a single annual property tax would free up hundreds of thousands of transactions.
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Latest property news
Johnson makes U-turn on mansion tax plans after heartlands backlash
Boris Johnson has scrapped government plans to introduce a mansion tax after a backlash from his party’s traditional bricks-and-mortar owning heartland. Over the weekend the new Chancellor Rishi Sunak said it was ‘highly unlikely’ that the measure would proceed, while the Prime Minister is said to have ‘cooled’ on the idea despite heralding it last week as a key policy to enable the UK to be ‘levelled up’ economically. But another reason for the ditching of the idea has been forming over the weekend among political commentators; that the mansion tax proposals were part of a plan by Johnson and his chief aide Dominic Cummings to oust Sajid Javid from No.11 if he didn’t go along with their plans to downgrade the power of HM Treasury. The idea was clearly not Javid’s. As property industry figure Trevor Abrahmsohn (left) found out after attending a private meeting recently with the now former Chancellor, he is unlikely to have adopted what has been in the past a Labour policy. “It was evident that he was a ‘fiscal pragmatist’, i.e. he believed in the notion that taxes are designed to raise as much money as possible for the Treasury, rather than being a…
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Features
Stamp Duty is killing market growth
The Stamp Duty Land Tax on a £5m home in London would buy a beautiful villa in Italy, says Andrew Symington, Symington Elvery.
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Housing Market
Mansion Tax would be bad for property, warns agent
With just over a week until the General Election, London based estate agents Sandfords has joined a chorus of other industry experts and warn of the possible ‘disastrous consequences’ for the residential property market if Labour is elected into power. The estate agency firm is particularly concerned about the party’s plans to introduce a mansion tax on all homes worth more than £2 million, and the potential impact that the levy could have on the housing market in London as well as other parts of the country. _“In the immediate run up to the Election we are seeing a lot of influential individuals, economists and agents shouting about the reality of a Labour Government and the effects their proposed mansion tax will have on the whole property market, and not just in London,” said Tim Fairweather, a Director at Sandfords. “We have voiced our fears of Labour’s taxing policy on numerous occasions ever since its proposal but it’s now increasingly apparent that it will provoke far reaching problems that will have an effect on millions of everyday people,” he added. Although Labour insist that they want to help aspirational homeowners gain a foot on the housing ladder, Fairweather claims that…
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Housing Market
Lib Dems reiterate Mansion Tax ambition with Election manifesto
The Liberal Democrat party has placed housing at the heart of its election manifesto, revealing plans to introduce a £100 cut in council tax for 10 years for people who insulate their home, as well as confirming that it plans to introduce a ‘mansion tax’ – originally a Liberal Democrat policy – on residential properties worth £2 million or more. Homes worth between £2 million and £2.5 million would face an annual mansion tax of up to £2,000 a year, under Liberal Democrat plans. Nick Clegg (left) confirmed the Lib Dems had scaled back the policy and it would now raise only £1 billion – considerably less than the £1.7 billion initially proposed. Mr Clegg commented, “It is less than originally mooted but as we have worked up the idea, looked at what we think is reasonable and fair, we think this is a reasonable and fair way of doing it and shouldn’t scare the horses.” The Labour Party has also proposed its own mansion tax, which would see properties valued between £2 million and £3 million paying £250 a month or £3,000 a year. The party is yet to set out details of higher bands. The Lib Dems’ manifesto,…
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Features
Is there any value in a mansion tax?
It has been more or less been killed off by the Chancellor's new Stamp Duty regime - but did the mansion tax ever have much currentcy?
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Guest Blogs
Property taxes must be fair!
I’m writing this article as the Scottish Parliament is about to announce radical changes to Stamp Duty which will come into effect from 1st April 2015. What is proposed is a progressive system rather than the crude system that operates now under which an increase of just £1 in the sale price can trigger an increase in the amount of Stamp Duty due of up to £40,000. I really hope that the Scottish review will cause the UK Parliament to look again at this grossly unfair tax. The current system is completely illogical and perverse and the consequence is that virtually no sales are agreed at prices that slightly exceed the break points of £125,000, £250,000, £500,000, £1 million and £2 million. Why should a buyer of a property at £250,001 pay £5,000 more tax than someone who buys the identical house next door for £250,000? A millionaire in a 10-bed mansion in northern England will pay nowt! The unfairness of the tax causes enormous resentment and distorts the housing market because people will inevitably reduce their offer to the nearest tax threshold. In years gone by, buyers and sellers could find ways around the problem by selling the fixtures…
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Guest Blogs
Mansion Tax
Vince Cable’s pet hobbyhorse, Mansion Tax, is daft, irresponsible and unworkable – apart from that, a great idea! It will have such a profound effect on the £1m plus residential property sector that a great deal of the revenue/foreign investment earned by Stamp Duty, VAT, Income and Corporation Tax, through estate agents earnings, will be lost. What Cable thinks he will receive by way of £1.6bn revenue for the Exchequer will be dwarfed by what he will lose. Remember, that on a typical £2m house, if the tax is one per cent, it will equate to £20,000 that requires approximately £40,000 to be earned. So effectively, in order to open the door of your £2m house, which, if you are lucky will be in pre-tax earnings, you have a huge burden before you even turn the lights on. And, if you consider that this probably will apply to a 2000sqft property, perhaps 1000sqft in the better parts of London, this cost will be penal and there will be an exodus of wealthy buyers fleeing to Monaco, Dubai, Geneva and anywhere else to escape this harsh regime. As it is, an American family of four will pay a levy of £200,000…
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