I have read some really bad ideas in recent days of what Rachel Reeves could do to help fill in the big black hole she has dug.
The latest is to levy CGT on homes sold for more than £1.5 m. That rumour is a good way to get some more well off people to leave the country before the next budget, taking the money from selling their home before the tax. We already have far too many wealthy and high income people leaving, hitting future tax revenues.
Such CGT would also lead many people to stay in their larger homes and adapt them to old age rather than paying the tax when they downsize. Any extra CGT would be in part offset by less Stamp Duty and less business and income tax as the volume of house transactions fell off.
There is the idea of cancelling Stamp Duty and imposing an annual levy on the buyer of the house, indexed to inflation. This would lead to a big loss of revenue in the early years as the government would lose all Stamp Duty on buying a home and levy only a fraction of the duty each year on the new owner . I cant see the Treasury buying that. The original proposal was based on not raising more revenue overall even over the longer term.
There is the idea of higher Council tax. Angela Rayner is pressing ahead with taking more grant away from areas with dearer properties to give more to poorer areas anyway. This amounts to another tax rise on more prosperous families and areas.There are limits to how much Council Tax people can and will pay.
There is then the idea of introducing new bands for more expensive properties to levy a higher rate. It would be difficult to do that without a general revaluation as establishing modern values for some dearer properties would invite challenges about other properties whose historic Council Tax valuations have been shifted by markets since I introduced the tax as Local Government Minister. At the very best all existing higher band properties would need valuing to decide which to promote to the new dearer bands.
All previous governments, Labour, Coalition and Conservative vetoed ideas of a revaluation as being very disruptive and unpopular. Will this government go to war again with people who have worked hard, aspired, and bought themselves a decent house? Will this government want to hike Council tax enough to force low income pensioners to sell up a home that has gone up in value since they bought it? A lot of people are house rich and income poor. It should not be a crime.
August 21, 2025
Good morning.
I wonder if they will do anything on MP’s second or third homes, and make flipping illegal ?
Silly me, what am I saying.
Reply What do you want done? Stopping MP s claiming mortgage costs on a London flat led to many more renting so they could claim the rent.
August 21, 2025
Margaret Thatcher realised that encouraging people to buy their own home was good for the country and society as a whole. People took pride in their community and run down estates improved immeasurably.
Along comes 2TK and his high school Marxist clowns who see all property ownership *excluding their own) as theft.
Putting onerous taxes on private property is the catalyst for government confiscation. Soon we will all be tenants allocated properties according to our needs. That will release 3 of the 4bedroims in my property to house channel invaders.
Don’t laugh, it’s going to happen unless we put a stop to it.
August 21, 2025
I agree. They want the majority of people to own nothing, work until they drop and rent their homes. In the last few years, we have seen banks and corporations building homes for rent that are not available to the general public. They are buying up massive amounts of housing stock. Whereas income from private landlords remains circulating within our economy, the majority of corporate rental income is being sent abroad, and I doubt these companies are paying tax like I do. How long before this Government extends the bedroom tax to privately owned homes? Those who are asset-rich and income poor will be squeezed out of their homes and will lose a massive amount of the equity they have built up over their lifetime. This Government, like the last, are a bunch of thieves, but it never applies to them. These ideas are wealth redistribution straight out of the Marxist playbook. Most people aren’t aware what’s coming. Whichever way you turn, they will strip you of your wealth.
August 22, 2025
I don’t doubt that somewhere in the bowels of Whitehall or the Labour Party, a team of Student Union Marxists are totting up how many “empty bedrooms” there are in the UK and are considering how best to appropriate them for the criminal migrants.
August 21, 2025
They do seem to regard the plebs as 80% modern slaves who need a box to sleep in, a bike, just enough to eat so they can work with circs 80% of earning stolen by state machine. For the do as I say not as I do hypocrites like Ed Miliband!
August 21, 2025
A state sector windfall tax on pensions perhaps. To reduce state sector pension to more like the average in the private sector would perhaps be justified as it is the private sector who pays for all these. But actually I am against all tax increases from the current hugely over taxed position. Higher rates will raise less tax not more in general but the above suggestion would not.
JR make the sensible points on the mad, damaging asset theft ideas we hear of.
Torsten Bell MP under Sec. for pensions, another PPE Oxon dope yesterday:- “Price rises are disconcerting for everybody, so it is important we keep easing the cost of living by raising the minimum wage…”
Raising the minimum wage raises the cost of living hugely you dope! Especially when done in addition to the employers NI grab and rip off net zero energy cost lunacy.
The minimum wage increase (which actually increases all wages as margins have to be maintained) works like this:- A company gets an increased wage bill by law. So say circa £10k for a samll business to find. Of this about £5k goes directly to the government in tax, NI and loss of benefits for some workers. Then the company has to increase prices (or fire people or close) to find this £10,000 plus there is extra VAT on top of these higher prices. Higher prices too as suppliers have to increase their similarly. The company then has less incentive and less money to invest for the future. The extra wages the employees gets is thus far less than the increases prices they have to pay. It is mainly a tax grab that increases the cost of living and makes us poorer in real terms. Yet more doom loop economics just how deluded are these PPE Oxon dopes?
August 21, 2025
@LL, I dare you to read his writings while at the Resolution Foundation, the you will the realise where RR is getting her brain dead ideas. He doesn’t belive minions should have thier own money just pocket money handed to them by the State. All but the Politburo are the shackles of the State there to engaciate the ego of their masters
August 21, 2025
+1
August 21, 2025
You say that rich people will leave the country if Labour increase tax. In today’s Guardian an article states Operation Raise the Colours wants to “bring back patriotism once and for all,”.
August 21, 2025
It is clear so many in government and CS have the opposite feelings of patriotism for our country.
August 21, 2025
It is surely people’s moral duty to avoid as much tax as possible by legal means, even by leaving the UK sometimes. This as the government spend it so appallingly and most people or businesses would spend or invest it better. This is perhaps the only way to control these tax, borrow and piss down the drain theives!
So much of government spending in the UK actually does net harm anyway – Net Zero, the Covid Vaccines (see the appalling Japan figures), the Covid Lockdowns, the low skilled migrant augmentation provisions, the payments to the feckless to encourage them to be so, HS2…
August 21, 2025
Whose colours do they want to raise? Not ours, it seems.
August 21, 2025
Socialism yet again only concerned with destroying wealth and those who have or might in the future create wealth. Nothing about facilitating the creation of wealth. Communism by stealth. If you can, leave the jurisdiction of this once green and pleasant land.
August 21, 2025
Indeed but where to go? I left about 14 years back, though I do still have businesses and investments in the UK that I should really dispose of over the next few years so as to avoid IHT, red tape, daft employment laws and the many other tax thefts that might be coming shortly from Rachael Theives Two Tier, Free Gear Kier, Ed Tomb Stone Miliband and their insane economic doom loop agenda.
August 21, 2025
It’s a terrifying black hole and future for us that they are creating. The “you will own nothing” slogan can’t be ignored. The family home is often people’s biggest asset by far, and the key to wealth being built up for the next generation. I’ve even seen rumours they will remove the primary residence CGT exemption – is that true, too?
The idea that the government wants to drag everyone down is no longer a “conspiracy theory”: it’s being played out in plain sight.
The attack on property will particularly hit the middle and aspirant working class. These two large groups have scrimped and saved; as a result they don’t rely on government handouts and aren’t beholden to our rulers. The attack on property is a very effective way to destroy their wealth and make them and their descendents reliant on, and thus subservient to, the State.
Serfs did not own their own homes in the past. I fear that is our future unless we rebel.
August 21, 2025
What has been floated in the press is removing the CGT exemption on properties over £1.5 million.
With the average house price in the UK being £275,000, an average family home will not be impacted by such a change.
August 21, 2025
so tell me what is the population above and below the line marking average houses at £275k?
I’d suggest it being drawn N.Blackpool to North of York?
August 21, 2025
That £275K includes places that few wish to live.
£1.5K is not a large amount for a London house just like £50K is a small London salary.
National rates do London ERS a huge disservice
August 21, 2025
John, this is just another deluded and political envy idea for yet more re-distribution.
They are now dredging the bottom of the barrel to try and squeeze every penny they can from people who have been financially prudent themselves over a lifetime.
Once you start taxing the family residential home you are on the road to disaster, we all know that the so called £1.5 Million limit suggested will be yet another tax threshold that time will erode through fiscal drag.
For goodness sake we already have a wealth tax on property which is called Council tax as it bears no relationship with Council services usage.
The Poll tax idea was the fairest way to charge for Council services, as everyone paid because everyone used them to one degree or another.
August 21, 2025
If the Community Charge ‘Poll Tax’ had been introduced gradually like a tapered wedge it would have been more likely to have been accepted and remained.
August 21, 2025
The Poll Tax was the ultimate regressive tax – the more you earned, the lower your rate of taxation.
August 21, 2025
It was a charge, not a tax.
August 21, 2025
But it was a tax on use
August 21, 2025
When council tax bands were set in April 1991 there wasn’t a particularly huge disparity in regional house prices. A 3 bed 1930s semi was about 50% dearer in London compared with the overall average, and about 25% dearer in the wider commuter belt. Only in Northern Ireland were prices particularly depressed. I charted the Nationwide Regional House Price indices with April 1991 clearly marked, deflating them by RPI to give an idea of real price trends, and using a log scale so that percentage increases are visually constant, here
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/hlPPI/1/
We now see a huge disparity for similar properties in London and the South East compared with other parts of the country, with London prices more than tripling in real terms. Prices in Northern Ireland have normalised. A revaluation to 1.5×3 or nearly 5 times a typical national 1991 price for London now would be ridiculous. Doubtless the large population on benefits would have their tax paid by the rest of us, because we certainly couldn’t handle an exodus of those unable to afford the tax.
Renters are otherwise bound to be affected by the changes every bit as much as the owner occupied sector. It seems that Labour want to create a large homeless class. Perhaps they should remember that taxation can lead to riots or even revolution. Anyone for a tea party?
August 21, 2025
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/309526/daylight-robbery-by-frisby-dominic/9780241360842
Daylight Robbery by Dominic Frisbee.
A history of how history was shaped by taxation.
August 21, 2025
Extremely interesting Mark, but as people have pointed out before a Band A in Barrow in Furness is a bit less than
£1,600 but in Wandsworth is £660. Hence the reason Labour talk about current property values.
August 22, 2025
I’ve not updated this recently, but I suspect the current picture isn’t too dissimilar. It shows Band D Council Tax rates across England.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/WTYQC/1/
There is an extreme anomaly in Central London (not just Wandsworth but also Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea). That is a combination of two effects: a higher average band means more revenue per household – see the map on average band values I posted elsewhere in the thread – and probably more importantly, very substantial property revenues from business property owned by the councils and from business rates. That is an historical accident that is best corrected in other ways.
I would be in favour of councils being required to sell off property portfolios with the proceeds going to the Treasury to reduce debt. Only key function property would be kept, including parks that would be designated to remain as such. It would remove the temptations for the likes of Woking to borrow to the hilt while trying to become property magnates, saddling council tax payers with the consequences of bankruptcy.
Of course, the other factor in Band D rates is the degree of DCLG central largesse and ruling on how money must be spent.
August 21, 2025
Community Charge.
August 21, 2025
Into the valley of tax rode the 600.
All around journalists thundered and blundered.
(Perhaps 50 or so are genuine opposition)
Be careful it isn’t seen as an enjoinder for violence.
August 21, 2025
There’s a good read on Wikipedia on the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 against the poll tax led, amongst others, by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw! Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
August 21, 2025
Just because you may be considered property or asset rich (whatever rich means these days) it does not mean you are also income rich, many people live in a high value home because they live in a high value area, which meant they had to borrow larger sums to purchase a home in such an area, and perhaps trim other expectations or expenses, thus their actual disposable income may well be lower than someone who purchased perhaps elsewhere where the purchase costs may be lower, but their disposable income may be higher.
There are many reasons for choosing which area to live in, family connections, work, local facilities, schools, transport links, crime, medical facilities, etc etc.
Thus another asset tax in addition to an already asset valued Council tax may well drive some people with a low or fixed level of income completely over the edge.
August 21, 2025
Correct!
August 21, 2025
Indeed a one bed flat on a busy road above a curry restaurant can easily be worth £500k in London!
August 21, 2025
I see our dear Chancellor, who must be the worst in history, is thinking of taxing the family home, she has already had a go at Personal Pensions, by including the unspent amount for inheritance tax, as well as the eventual recipient also having to pay income tax on any withdrawals on the remainder, after IHT has been applied, (double taxation of the same asset), it is now reported that she is also looking at taxing or limiting further, the present Tax Free Lump sum element.
She is also reported as looking at additional taxation on gifting your own money away (Political Party gifts presently exempt) when there is already an imposed 7 year limit.
Yet she wants us all to invest in Business to get growth going. !
The Chancellor is totally and utterly deluded if she thinks this is a positive plan.
What is the point of working, saving, striving, risking, investing any more, when the Government want to take the major share of any gains, but take none of the risk of loosing..
So far it is reported that over £5 Billion has already been withdrawn from Personal Pension funds since the last Budget, such is the lack of confidence in this Chancellor and Government.
Reply People give to political larties out of taxed income. Gifts to charity are tax free
August 21, 2025
Reply-Reply
Surely all gifts start from taxed income, charity gifts comes out of someones taxed income.
If you gift out of savings that savings was also built up out of taxed income.
Political Parties do not pay tax on gifts of the money they receive do they ?
Reply There is tax relief on a gift to charity but not on a gift to a political party.
August 21, 2025
To reply – should gifts to charities be tax free? So many charities are little more than businesses with unfair tax breaks. Many do very little genuine charitable works with large proportions spent on high wages, pensions for staff, marketing costs and overheads and in effect many lefty political activities. The top rates of tax should be more like 20% than 45%. With this then removing the gift aid or restricting it to a small annual sum per donor or no full tax relief might be a sensible move.
Low tax rates for all but with few tax breaks. Simpler and more efficient!
August 21, 2025
She does a growth, growth, growth rain dance, but all Labour policies are hugely anti-growth with the possible exception of relaxing planning – which has not even happened as yet. V. High taxes, high net zero and intermittent energy costs, high red tape levels, workers rights bills, rigged markers in energy, schools, universities, transport, health care, housing, Cars, heating systems… all doom loop policies!
August 21, 2025
Do we need council-tax banding at all? Or a revaluation? The Land Registry knows the value of pretty much every house. I’ll suggest that the council-tax liability should be established by them at purchase, and that annual rises are then limited to the Bank of England’s inflation-target.
I’ll see myself out.
August 21, 2025
Spot on, obfuscation and complication is not neccessary
August 21, 2025
If you pursued such a policy then the wealthier parts of the country would have well funded councils, whilst the poorer ones would struggle to pay the bin nen – and you could forget about repairing potholes.
Here’s a map showing median house prices to get an idea of the efrect.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/h1yF2/1/
There is a degree of negative correlation between Band D council tax rates and the average band valuation, suggesting council spending is not linked to property values.
August 21, 2025
The house sales market is already stagnating where property over £1.25 million is involved.
To levy CGT on these properties would stop older residents from selling in order to downsize because most would have purchased 30 + years ago and have ,by default, created a massive gain.
For those who have recently bought expensive houses where there is no capital gain yet on what they paid, will find it difficult to sell them again if they are to pay disproportionately higher levels of Council Tax or a wealth tax and if the stamp duty land tax rates are increased for higher value property this will also have a negative impact.
It has become both difficult and expensive to buy and sell houses in the UK because of the greed of successive Governments seeing this market as a ‘cash cow’.
We are on the verge of housing stagnation leading to a house price crash leading to negative equity if the Labour government continue with this policy.This in turn will lead to house builders not building and jobs in this sector being lost.
August 21, 2025
Also ‘gain’ will not be indexed linked of course. Therefore they are committing fraud and should be reported in accordance with the law that comes into force on 1st September.
August 21, 2025
@Paul Wooldridge. +1. The property market could become an utter mess with these sort of policies being imposed, with a massive devaluation of accumulated personal wealth.
New properties would likely be flats (the only way developers could turn a profit) as buyers would want a low-Council Tax/Property Tax band dwellings, and increasingly those buyers would be social landlords due to the impoverishmentof middle England. This would concentrate the population. 15 minute cities comes to mind, as well as the “you will own nothing” slogan.
August 21, 2025
The fact Labour are even considering these policies along with other ultra-dumb ideas like introducing a wealth tax or increasing CGT to the highest level in the developed world explains in large part why the UK is in such terrible shape. Who – other than potential benefits claimants or criminals – is going to want to come here (or in many cases stay here) when money made legitimately is increasingly subject to jealousy-inspired confiscation?
August 21, 2025
First government should spend less.
Once this is done it is reasonable to charge more expensive home greater council tax but this should not be subject to revaluations based on perceived values, this should be levied on the last purchase price, this protects asset rich and income poor occupants (although they should not get a discount on previous rates).
Then reduce the grant to councils so they have the same amount of money and put the savings toward, law and order, defence, nuclear and education (but nothing else).
August 21, 2025
No it is not reasonable. People as consuming units use public services, not homes. The single person in a large house creates much less waste than five people in a modest house. Poll tax was the way to go, but not properly thought out, destroyed by those who choose a parasitic lifestyle and those who advocate it. When you buy a bar of chocolate the price is not governed by the size of your home.
August 21, 2025
@Narrow Shoulders – agreed. A Budget, is just that balancing expenditure against earnings. If the ability to earn, in this case the Countries ability to earn is removed, there is less coming in, so less to spend. All taxes are the removal of money therefore the seed-corn of the economy,
August 21, 2025
Rachel could begin to fill her black hole by focusing on efficiency and waste reduction.
Strengthening HMRC’s ability to tackle tax evasion and avoidance (particularly with multinationals and complex financial structures) could yield more revenue than taxing main residences.
She could apply CGT changes more selectively, such as to second homes, investment properties, and overseas ownership of UK premises, while keeping primary residences exempt. This avoids penalising downsizers and ordinary families, but still raises money from speculative or investment-driven activity.
Reply Those categories already pay CGT!
August 21, 2025
The best tax on businesses is competition. Try to extract money from them via ever more onerous and Byzantine systems results in higher prices and businesses moving elsewhere, which is their best tax avoidance strategy. Neither helps with our economic problems.
August 21, 2025
My view is that we are taxed to the hilt already. The problem is the twin deficits. We import more goods and services than we export – and have done for decades; governments habitually spend more than their income.
Unfortunately, politically difficult tho it may be, Reeves is going to have to cut the welfare bill. I’ve already suggested a 5 year moratorium on accepting any more asylum seekers. The boat people should be interned in tent cities and deported back to Africa. If the economy needs skilled migrants this should be organised on a points system based on the Australian model.
Many countries in Europe (Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Greece, and Spain etc) are already making it increasingly difficult for inward migrants. We should be doing the same
As the global heating emergency really starts to kick in, over the next decade millions of destitute people will be moving north into Europe from uninhabitable equatorial areas. We are an island; close the borders
August 21, 2025
I think your claim that temperatures are increasing in equatorial areas needs proper citations. As far as I understand the data and models, the claims are that polar areas are warming up, while equatorial areas maintain stable temperatures. Also, much of the warming is milder winters and nights, not hotter summers.
Indeed, in Africa we have the desert in retreat thanks to global greening, making tre land mord habitable..
August 21, 2025
Sir John, I think many of us have come to the conclusion, you can never put anything past this present Labour government.
Trying to use rational economics or plain old fashioned common sense is a waste of time, because Labour logic operates on a different priority.
Labour have decided, clearly, to destroy the electorates belief in democracy by removing it from the agenda and replacing it with totalitarian ideas and policy that no one can resist. They have decided to use lawfare at every turn to stop all criticism of the destructive policies they are progressing.
The option to tax ever more harshly those who have anything left to tax, will naturally run out of steam when there are no more individuals with wealth to tax.
At that point the totalitarian objective will have been delivered. The WEF’s promise of “You will own nothing and be happy” is chilling. In the first part, owning nothing is not ideal, but the second part telling someone “you will be happy” is an instruction, it is not a natural result of owning nothing. They even want to instruct and control our emotional options!!
Labour are on a mission. You can throw all the old economic ideas out of the window, because they no longer apply under this administration.
August 21, 2025
The question that they will ask themselves is which measures will be most palatable to their clientele. They will reason that people in higher value homes probably do not vote for them in any event and therefore they can be safely made the subject of a new impost or levy. Personally, I would abolish stamp duty on house purchases and levy CGT on all property transactions allowing for indexation and money spent on capital improvements, i.e. money spent on adding space or installing energy efficient heating systems, double glazing and insulation, but not new kitchens and bathrooms.
August 21, 2025
” That rumour is a good way to get some more well off people to leave the country before the next budget”
Surly Sir John, even you can see that’s the plan, the last thing a Socialist wants is people that endeavour to by the best of their abilities to be self resilient and resilient, look in the mirror and take responsibility for the person looking back. Socialism is not about jealously it is just about being vindictive and wanting to remove those that don’t fall into line with the very personal views of how a collective should be run. You cant control unless everyone is beholden to you personally, and Socialism is about a personal view of how to control people.
So if you have taken care of yourself and those around you you must leave or be punished. Socialism is about punishment not collective responsibility and equal contribution. You work for the State, which means the personal views of the Politburo.
When you look at the history and the teachings of RR’s advisors you get to know there ambition is vengeance, and punishment of individual achievment
August 21, 2025
There is an embeded anti wealth creation in socialism. Around 600 members of the Commons share this socialist belief. The reason, wealth gives individuals indepependence, such that they can decide which country, county or district they choose to live and work in. Not to mention the size of house or lifestyle they choose to persue. Socialism hates choice and the freedom to choose. Socialism prefers controllable grey. Their achilles heel is that they are so incompetent they fail to control anything for the benefit of the people. Political affiliation is the last quality we require to run the U K for the benefit of its population. Political targets are invariably corrupted for political ends. Political ends do not include the creation of individual or even national wealth, because such a result bestows the independence our politicians largely hate.
August 21, 2025
@agricola – +1, yes a sad bunch wanting slaves to worship the ground they walk, all for the gratification of personal self-esteem. It’s not even out of jealousy of achievement, it’s the vindictive punishment
August 21, 2025
Current council tax bands are based on the old rateable values assessed in the early 1990s. The highest council tax band, Band H, includes properties valued over £320,000. In most areas, this amount will only buy you an average house. We now have the anomaly that a small newly built home pays the same council tax as a multi-million pound mansion. It’s time for more bands to be introduced or the values to be increased. The current system doesn’t work and is grossly unfair.
August 21, 2025
That isn’t how the system works. Tax bands on new homes are assessed in comparison with “similar” homes that were already in existence in 1991. In principle all 3 bed semis in an area are banded the same whatever their vintage. As I pointed out in another post, for the most part regional disparities in house prices for similar properties were small in 1991, and much smaller than today’s. In my view that makes the 1991 base much fairer than a revaluation would be.
August 21, 2025
It has been discovered that my previous county council funnelled hundreds of millions of pounds of our council tax into government bonds, some of which don’t mature for 99 years. These have so far lost £150 million. Surely this is a misappropriation of funds and should be investigated.
August 21, 2025
Is it being run by the Bank of England?
August 21, 2025
They really don’t like us do they? 🙁
August 21, 2025
The answer to both questions is of course “Yes” for Marxism depends upon making and keeping people poor. Taxing property so that fewer people own their own property is part of their plan to impoverish the country and is coupled with trashing the economy and social cohesion with Net Zero de-industrialisation and massive immigration. Just as the Marxists used collectivisation and famines to control the Soviet Union. Our PM, before he was elected to Parliament, served on the executive committee of the Fabian Society, a Far Left movement, whose logo is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
August 21, 2025
This Labour Government is both greedy and stupid. There should be no tax rises in the next budget. A sane and sensible government would find the £50 billion by ruthlessly cutting government spending. That is about 4% of current spending this financial year.
We have a PM, deputy PM and Chancellor who lack intelligence, common sense and any understanding of what it is like to live on an ordinary salary or pension.
We may be certain that if there is a right way and a wrong way to do something, this incompetent government will always choose the wrong way.
August 21, 2025
If they do try to CGT houses, surely it could not be a simple difference between what was paid and what it sells for. Surely at the very least the amount paid to the mortgage lenders should be deducted, which over a mortgage lifetime is probably 5 times the original purchase price. As usual, the politicians, no doubt advised by the Civil Service, seek out the most complicated way to do things. Anyway, I thought the black hole problem was immediate, so why try to introduce something that may not bring in any money for years, especially if people don’t want to pay and stay put. Think straight, think simple. Surely the easiest way is to increase income tax bands by a little which is easy to implement and fairer (I won’t say fair because the big money people will always fiddle a way out of it). Then if we ever get straight (seems unlikely), parties could vie to reduce the tax again as an election bribe. Or better yet, the unthinkable, cut public spending, cancel Nut Zero, kill the quangos (whatever happened to that idea?).
August 22, 2025
Imposing CGT (or high SDLT or other big property taxes) would cause the property market to stagnate. You can avoid SDLT and CGT by not selling. Alternatives including renting, and taking out a lifetime mortgage to fund care home costs. Sales would be restricted to repossessions and executor sales, or perhaps sales at a very small gain or loss, so property that was bought recently. Values might fall quite sharply, leaving many in negative equity and unable to sell, and causing a banking crisis.
You could end up like Detroit, where accumulated unpaid property tax bills leave property with a negative market value, and the city bankrupt with no revenue because the owners simply moved away or died.
August 21, 2025
Off Topic.
Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has won back the right to have luxuries inside prison, including access to a TV and DVD player. The cowardly triple killer had lost his access to luxuries after hurling boiling water over a prison guard in May, in an incident which sparked debate over prisoners’ access to kettles.
But Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer defended it earlier this year.
He was asked in May about Lucy Connolly’s case after her Court of Appeal application against her jail term was dismissed. Asked during Prime Minister’s Questions whether her imprisonment was an “efficient or fair use” of prison, Sir Keir said: “Sentencing is a matter for our courts and I celebrate the fact that we have independent courts in this country. “I am strongly in favour of free speech, we’ve had free speech in this country for a very long time and we protect it fiercely.
So which is it? Defend sentencing if with a Conservative, support free speech if not!
August 21, 2025
Bring in UK Midterm Elections – held every two and a half years thus falling into the middle of a PM’s five year term in office.
Midterm elections to rid the country of dangerous governments, like the one we have right now!
R
August 21, 2025
There is not a 5 year term of office, the PM can call and election anytime he likes.
August 21, 2025
The unseamly rush by the girl from accounts and her incompetent minions to find ways to tax us even more, disguises the only sensible answer if there really is a black hole of whatever size : TO CUT SPENDING
It is ridiculous that this option is not even being considered.
There are no sensible additional taxes that could be levied that could possibly raise the kind of sums economists are talking about without having drastically adverse affects on the economy.
If a sensible plan to cut expenditure is not developed, Starmer will inevitably have to follow his Labour predecessor, James Callaghan, and call in the IMF well before the next election.
August 21, 2025
This picture won’t have changed much since I prepared it.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/B4Kcp/1/
It shows the relative average council tax bands across England. There is a premium for London and the Home Counties (particularly Surrey) and depressed values in the cities of the industrial North due to concentrations of small terraced properties.
August 21, 2025
‘ Persson said – you are doomed from the start if you try to muddle through with
“ ad-hoc hodgepodge “ measures . ‘
From A E-P piece on Sweden fixing their economic crisis .
Spot on !