I was pleasantly surprised to read this in The Telegraph:
Mr Duncan Smith suggested that... single occupiers or couples without children could be [incentivised] to leave larger houses. "We have tons of elderly people living in houses which they cannot run and we've got queues of desperate people with families who are living in one and two-bedroom houses and flats," he said.
Meh
3 hours ago
9 comments:
Talking about land value tax which Iain Duncan Smith was n't(he would probably be victim to a mysterious cow attack if he did),there is a really dull letter from Nicholas
Falk of Urbed Ltd in The Guardian about using land values in some unexplained way to fund infrastructure .He manages to make reform to the banking system,infrastructure finance and the land market really boring.
This is the way forward in my view.I feel the whole attitude of land taxers,trying to make it interesting, is wholly misplaced (or inappropriate as real dullards would say). Please try and be duller in future.
DBC, maybe you're right, but I have suggested e.g. Sentinel Tax before and it was shouted down by the usual suspects.
So, peoples property is part of the State's housing stock, to be allocated by the State according to the current whim of government.
"You don't need three bedrooms, you qualify for only two, therefore you must be forced to move."
Not my idea of a civilised society.
He's not being entirely accurate when he says: "We have tons of elderly people living in houses which they cannot run" about council housing.
It's not that hard for someone to move down in council housing. The problem is that unlike with private owners, there's little incentive to downsize when the kids leave home.
There is no incentive since they receive Council Tax Benefit.
Enforced appropriation of old people's homes, eh?
TFB, render what is Cæsar's unto Cæsar, is my motto.
JT, exactly, that was the joke.
Anon, yup, I covered that. Even worse, the Pensions Credit is means tested for cash but not housing 'wealth' so downsizing can make you worse off.
JH, what is the state pension (of which I am a big fan) if not 'appropriation of young people's incomes'? How much does NIMBYism contribute to ludicrously high house prices and hence 'appropriation of young people's incomes'? Give and take, eh?
Enforced appropriation of old people's homes, eh?
No, not at all. IDS was talking about council homes. They do not belong to the residents but to all local taxpayers. The residents, unless they are themselves paying full market rates, are the recipients of charity. If the taxpayers have a lot of people to be charitable to, they are entitled to optimise how they do it.
Of course, the best solution for all concerned would be to collapse the cost of housing so no-one (or as few people as possible) needed charity to be able to have somewhere to live.
IDS probably just wants them out so Dave can flog 'em off on the cheap.
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