Private spare bedroom tax.

Ronaldo_Mconaldo

But there is no "bedroom tax". Don't let this stop your wonderful socialist idea though. What happens is some people get their benefits reduced. I own a house and don't get benefits so why should I care? I've got a couple of spare rooms, maybe i'll have a few kids in the future to put in them or maybe i'll just use them as a games room with a big tv and Xbox, it's up to me.

Fella

Ronaldo_Mconaldo wrote: »

But there is no "bedroom tax".

Exactly. Nulabor ploy 101 is to get people discussing "The Bedroom Tax", "Tax-breaks for millionaires", "The Cost Of Living Crisis" etc etc etc.

None of these things are real and their aim is not to win the debate. It's to have the debate often enough that those and other phrases become so embedded into our language that lots of people will be fooled into thinking that they are real. Or in other words, a bit like beginning a debate by saying to someone "do you still beat your wife?". The correct response is not to say yes or no, it's to reject the premise outright. Something the coalition have been extremely poor at doing, hence Labour have been quite successful pushing their cost of living crisis nonsense even though a dribbling 2-y-old knows it's utter bunk.

BillJones

Fella wrote: »

Exactly. Nulabor ploy 101 is to get people discussing "The Bedroom Tax", "Tax-breaks for millionaires", "The Cost Of Living Crisis" etc etc etc.

They dissemble in other ways, too, such as their completely dishonest calls to "tax banker's bonuses". People now seem to believe that our bonuses are tax freee as, after all, why would they call for a tax on them if they were already taxed?

N1AK

Fella wrote: »

Exactly. Nulabor ploy 101 is to get people discussing "The Bedroom Tax"

None of these things are real and their aim is not to win the debate.

The issue is that even people who broadly speaking support the intention of the change referring to it as a "spare room subsidy" leaves a nasty taste in the mouth because it is so laden with political spin.

It's also nonsense to suggest there isn't a 'cost of living' crisis, or that there wasn't a tax break for millionares. It is undoubtedly true that one of the first tax changes by the current government was to cut income tax for very high earners; I don't even think it was the wrong thing to do but the only lie here is you pretending it's fictional.

N1AK

borkid wrote: »

Anothe silly idea why don't we tax people who have more 2 pairs of shoes or 2 gold rings or any other mad idea inspired by jealousy.

I don't think a private 'bedroom tax' is a good idea but the reasons against it you're proposing aren't why.

The original post questioned whether it might help with the housing shortage. There's no reason to think theat there is a shoes shortage so that's irrelevant. Also it's not unusual to get taxed and then taxed again, hell most of what I earn and then spend is! But that doesn't mean it's a problem. I'm better off paying income tax and VAT at current levels than if they dropped VAT and brought in a single 80% income tax rate

cells

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

There has already been a massive upsurge in lodger rooms and flatshares, etc, and a realignment of the property market.

It's how we've housed the millions of additional people while building nowhere near enough houses for decades.

The market is working exactly as it should in that regard....

Shortage of housing = prices and rents rise = more people forced to share accommodation in order to ration the limited supply of houses.

There should be some more effort to make room rentals or an owner occupier vacating their only homes to make way for higher occupancy. Not that it is a solution to the desperate shortage of needed additional homes

For instance currently if there are two older folk in their respective homes and they decide to live together and share bills and rent out the one now spare home the vacter will be liable for capital gains tax. In that respect I would say the gov really should make the ownership of one house capital gains tax free of you live on it or not. The current system incourages single occupier homes to receive capital gains tax exemption.

cells

Fella wrote: »

Exactly. Nulabor ploy 101 is to get people discussing "The Bedroom Tax", "Tax-breaks for millionaires", "The Cost Of Living Crisis" etc etc etc.

None of these things are real and their aim is not to win the debate. It's to have the debate often enough that those and other phrases become so embedded into our language that lots of people will be fooled into thinking that they are real. Or in other words, a bit like beginning a debate by saying to someone "do you still beat your wife?". The correct response is not to say yes or no, it's to reject the premise outright. Something the coalition have been extremely poor at doing, hence Labour have been quite successful pushing their cost of living crisis nonsense even though a dribbling 2-y-old knows it's utter bunk.

At any given time a section of the population is doing poorly be it recession or boom

Crying that the cost of living is too high would win support at any time

of course where the government should act is the cost of housing both rents and prices by removing tjeu artificial limits whih result in the uk building only 130k new units a yr while demographically similar france builds 420k a year

the housing shortage is both labour and torys fault. The population boomed post 2000 while the build rate didn't go up at all.

borkid

N1AK wrote: »

The original post questioned whether it might help with the housing shortage. There's no reason to think theat there is a shoes shortage so that's irrelevant. Also it's not unusual to get taxed and then taxed again, hell most of what I earn and then spend is! But that doesn't mean it's a problem. I'm better off paying income tax and VAT at current levels than if they dropped VAT and brought in a single 80% income tax rate

That part of the post wasn't meant to be taking seriously. Is wanting a bedroom tax on home owners a form of jealousy? If so then why not tax everything that someone might have more of than is necessary.

System

I can see a lot of walls being knocked down and some very large bedrooms as a result.

Fella

N1AK wrote: »

It's also nonsense to suggest there isn't a 'cost of living' crisis

No it's really NOT. Saying there's a "cost of living crisis" is analogous to breaking someone's leg, then moaning about the doctor who fixed it causing a massive "leg in plaster" crisis. If you get the country into horrible boatloads of debt then any child knows that the path out of that debt won't be all smooth & roses. We could have had endless repossessions, raging inflation & 5 million people unemployed. Instead we've had none of those things so nulabor's spin factory have invented a term out of thin air because they're desperate to put a negative spin on a recovery that has beaten all of their predictions, expectations, and (most of all) fervent hopes. Rest assured no-one in Britain is currently wanting poor people to suffer and suffer BAD more than those lovely people in the labour party. It's the only chance they've got of getting back in.

N1AK wrote: »

It is undoubtedly true that one of the first tax changes by the current government was to cut income tax for very high earners; .

Utter rubbish. The top tax rate under Labour's 13-year rule was 40%. Under the coalition it's 5% higher at 40%.

If you want to claim the coalition gave millionaires a tax break by reducing the "temporary" 50% tax rate to 45%, then you must also accept that throughout their 13 years in power, Labour gave those same millionaires a tax break that was TWICE AS BIG.

This is fact.