Property tax mulled over

Neverland

princeofpounds wrote: »

Should society, including the 'working poor', pay for the support of people (directly or indirectly) who have no income but huge amounts of capital wealth?

No, obviously

Anyone who argues otherwise just as a vested interest

Anyone else see Kirsty Allsop, home counties born daughter of a peer and common-law wife of a property developer arguing (badly) what a bad idea a "mansion tax" was on Newsnight the other day...:rotfl:

princeofpounds

To which the answer is that if you've invested your income in property, you are saving society the cost of having to house you should you have no income later on in life.

If you get to retirement age with no house, no pension and no savings (as many do) then the state must pay for your care in it's entirety.

Why would we want to discourage an activity (buying a house) which relieves the state of the cost of housing people in their old age?

Hi Hamish. Actually those are all good arguments except for the fact that the provision of housing and the provision of a £2 million mansion are not really the same thing.

But I think you confusing the point a little. The paragraph you reply to is not comparing a homeowner with someone who needs housing support, the comparison is between someone who has £2 million of investments and cash, and someone who has £2 million of house. The fomer does not get any housing support and restricted access to a whole range of benefits. The latter not only gets access to more benefits that are means-tested, they also can even get access to housing support under SMI, if they take out a mortgage of up to 200k the taxpayer will pay it for them.

That's pretty inconsistent.

Would be interested in your views on the more general and fundamental point:

Should society, including the 'working poor', pay for the support of people (directly or indirectly) who have no income but huge amounts of capital wealth?

the_flying_pig

Neverland wrote: »

No, obviously

Anyone who argues otherwise just as a vested interest

Anyone else see Kirsty Allsop, home counties born daughter of a peer and common-law wife of a property developer arguing (badly) what a bad idea a "mansion tax" was on Newsnight the other day...:rotfl:

Fair play to her for having the gall to say, deadpan, "There are people living in mansions struggling".

Whilst this may well be true, it overlooks the obvious, namely that everyone knows that human beings living in the UK only need about [say] £10k per head after tax to live a spartan lifestyle, double that to live a reasonably comfortable one.

£2m+ house buys well north of two entire lifetimes of reasonably comfortable living. Any "struggling" that's going on can only be due to debts and/or outgoings that are, to the average person, absurd.

By way of an analogy, if I earn £200k per year and blow all of it on slow horses & fast women I don't suddenly have to stop paying income tax and/or become eligible for income suppoprt.

princeofpounds

No, obviously

Anyone who argues otherwise just as a vested interest

But it's remarkable how little this central question gets addressed directly, isn't it?

drc

Is a "mansion tax" Cable's roundabout way of trying to reduce house prices (in London)? I am guessing his logic is that people would reduce the asking price cost of their homes to under the tax cap and if this begins at the higher end will filter down to the lower end?