epsilonGreedy Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 According to the Sunday Times the Treasury is investigating scrapping stamp duty and council tax and replacing these with a simple annual tax of 0.48% of a property's value. I think this would be £ neutral for me. One downside is that it undermines local democracy because voters can no longer punish a local council for reckless spending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 It would be cheaper for me, bring it on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Same old same old. Improve your property, increase the value and cop even more tax. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Punter Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Just spent £40k SDLT so would not be the best of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epsilonGreedy Posted January 17, 2021 Author Share Posted January 17, 2021 It would create a one off win for these pensioner equity release businesses who must factor in stamp duty costs when they sell off a property. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Wouldn’t get through parliament as it would crucify the London renters who pay £1,400 a year council tc in Shoreditch for a 2 bed flat worth £800k. They would see their bills jump by over 2.5 times, and if they go after the landlord then they will just add it to the rents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Bring back the Poll Tax/Tax per person? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 53 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said: According to the Sunday Times the Treasury is investigating scrapping stamp duty and council tax and replacing these with a simple annual tax of 0.48% of a property's value. I think this would be £ neutral for me. One downside is that it undermines local democracy because voters can no longer punish a local council for reckless spending. Interesting one. Looks carefully pitched in value terms. £2400 on a 500k property. Not too out of balance for normal houses in Outer London in CT terms. Would cost buyer there a few hundred a year and save approx 15k on the Stamp. Would seriously impact those places like Westminster / Wandsworth where CT has traditionally been low, but would save more on the Stamp. Impacts elsewhere less extreme. Works for all of those. Also works for the Red Wall and other areas as SD levels are very small for the vast majority. Also in such areas CT is higher, so it would play to "levelling up". Peter is right that renting is the hard case. They could try keeping and increasing Stamp Surcharge. I wonder if coming London price adjustments may make a difference. One issue is greater centralisation nationally, as there may need to be inter-area adjustments. F Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 It's not the big one though. CGT relief on main dwelling needs to just go to undistort the market. That is worth £25bn a year and the benefit is heavily tilted to the better off and the rich areas. As it is a tax on gain, all that happens is that the gain is a little smaller. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epsilonGreedy Posted January 17, 2021 Author Share Posted January 17, 2021 26 minutes ago, PeterW said: Wouldn’t get through parliament as it would crucify the London renters who pay £1,400 a year council tc in Shoreditch for a 2 bed flat worth £800k. They would see their bills jump by over 2.5 times, and if they go after the landlord then they will just add it to the rents. The tax reform is designed to shore up the red wall, a test case is the Chancellor's constituency in Richmond Yorkshire where most would be winners. During the brexit debates we learned that half of MPs secure additional responsibilities in government so plenty of incentive to keep the conservatives in power down south. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Punter Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 There is a drive towards simplifying tax but SDLT and Council Tax are both simple and easy to collect so I don't think there is any efficiency savings with the 0.48%. It would mean a lot of time spent revaluing because the bands were quite simple and they would need to be accurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epsilonGreedy Posted January 17, 2021 Author Share Posted January 17, 2021 22 minutes ago, Ferdinand said: Interesting one. Looks carefully pitched in value terms. Next budget is the 3rd of March so not long to wait. Most probably there will be an obscure reference to a consultation exercise that will report in early 2022 by which time they won't risk overhauling such an emotive issue with the next general election 2 years away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Back on topic. The genesis of this idea seems to be in a piece on Conservative Home by Kevin Hollinrake MP, from the All Party Housing Group. "In place of the administrative challenge of council tax, in which properties are taxed through a confusing and distorting system of bands and exemptions, the PPT would apply a single rate of tax – 0.48 per cent of property value – to all homes. Owners rather than tenants would be responsible for the tax, removing over 8.7 million households from property tax altogether and saving councils an annual £400 million in administrative costs. To incentivise more efficient usage of existing property, a surcharge on second, empty and offshore-owned homes would be introduced, as well as on plots of land that received council planning permission yet have been left vacant by developers. The policy is revenue neutral – raising the same amount of money for the Treasury as the scrapped taxes currently do. To maintain the important democratic link between local expenditure and local taxation, Fairer Share recommends that the 0.48 per cent rate should consist of two components. A fixed national rate (0.32 per cent) which would go to central government for redistribution and an initial floating local rate (0.16 per cent) which would go straight to the local authority and could subsequently be moved up or down by that authority. In this way local authorities retain flexibility over taxation and voters can still judge them on value for money. And importantly, this approach includes the complete abolition of stamp duty land tax (SDLT) on owner-occupied residential property. " https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2020/09/kevin-hollinrake-conservatives-must-consider-a-proportional-property-tax.html It is quite a long, interesting piece. Looking at that, it seems to aim to solve the "granny in a £2 million house" problem, by reducing the transaction costs of leaving, and slightly increasing those of staying. F Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epsilonGreedy Posted January 17, 2021 Author Share Posted January 17, 2021 One problem is that it results in a situation where central government has a vested interest in house price inflation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 14 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said: Next budget is the 3rd of March so not long to wait. Most probably there will be an obscure reference to a consultation exercise that will report in early 2022 by which time they won't risk overhauling such an emotive issue with the next general election 2 years away. I think the logical time to do it would be either at the end of a short extension to the Stamp Duty holiday, or immediately. That would entirely lance the kind of chaos Nigel Lawson caused in 1988 when he gave 4 months warning of major change to close a huge loophole. I have not got my head around whether likely house price fluctuations after COVID would make it easier or harder to implement. Liability on rented property would make a big difference to me, as Council Tax tends to be around 20% ish of the rent. That would be punishing, and I am already well into 5 figures in Corona in adjustments, rent rise delays, and writeoffs helping tenants get through intact. If adjustments are not too lumpy, I may really like this. F 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epsilonGreedy Posted January 17, 2021 Author Share Posted January 17, 2021 2 minutes ago, Ferdinand said: If adjustments are not too lumpy, I really like this. Covid has sharply accelerated the move to remote working, now couple that with London rentals becoming untenable as per the @PeterW example and the result could be a big downsizing shift to the provinces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Hmmm. Another benefit of Stamp Duty going would be to reduce savings required by first time buyers. F Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Punter Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 This would be advantageous for those in crappy areas and bad for those in smart areas Council tax amounts by band seem fairly similar throughout the country, so each band reflects a similar house. The less well off areas would see savings of over 60% and the affluent area increases of the same amount. I cannot see it being a vote winner in London and the Home Counties. I also cannot see how it will be balanced - it looks like they will need to raise further tax elsewhere of increase the rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 I am nervous of change. When I bought my first house the RATES were £220 per YEAR. Then it changed for the poll tax. Great, everyone will pay not just the homeowner so it will be cheaper . WRONG. Then it changed for the council tax, back to a lower figure like the rates then? WRONG So if it changes again, which way do you think the cost will go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiking Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 3 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said: According to the Sunday Times the Treasury is investigating scrapping stamp duty and council tax and replacing these with a simple annual tax of 0.48% of a property's value. I think this would be £ neutral for me. One downside is that it undermines local democracy because voters can no longer punish a local council for reckless spending. I really can’t see anything as game-changing as this actually happening but this is a fairer direction to head in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tennentslager Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 (edited) Better a land tax, for most folk the land value is the house value. Like a house in a garden... For big land owners they have to pay more, don't pay the government take the land and sell it, but of course self builders of eco friendly homes get first dibs and a 10% discount, no chance of dodging the tax, can't hide land can ye Edited January 17, 2021 by Tennentslager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epsilonGreedy Posted January 17, 2021 Author Share Posted January 17, 2021 35 minutes ago, Mr Punter said: This would be advantageous for those in crappy areas and bad for those in smart areas By "crappy areas" do you mean all those places where more than half of your fellow country men live? 36 minutes ago, Mr Punter said: I cannot see it being a vote winner in London and the Home Counties. It is not meant to be, General Elections are won in marginal constituencies now referred to as the "red wall". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsibob Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 2 hours ago, PeterW said: Wouldn’t get through parliament as it would crucify the London renters who pay £1,400 a year council tc in Shoreditch for a 2 bed flat worth £800k. They would see their bills jump by over 2.5 times, and if they go after the landlord then they will just add it to the rents. I hope you are right. I paid £90k in SDLT a couple of years ago, which added some 5 years to my mortgage. This change would quintuple my annual council tax as well as introduce a burden on me as a landlord. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epsilonGreedy Posted January 17, 2021 Author Share Posted January 17, 2021 9 minutes ago, daiking said: I really can’t see anything as game-changing as this actually happening but this is a fairer direction to head in. I agree. Paying back the £400 billion of funny money quantitative easing created in the last 9 months out of thin air, is going to require tax reform of stupendous proportions. The people of this country have little perception how different their remaining life will be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Punter Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 7 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said: By "crappy areas" do you mean all those places where more than half of your fellow country men live? I meant less sought after locations with lower house prices. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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