Tuesday 21 October 2014

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (342)

MBK emailed in a splendid new variant of the "diagonal comparison" in The Times, it goes like this:

"If I am forced to pay LVT, then I will have less money to spend on [worthy cause]", in this case, charitable donations.

The author of the piece is so Home-Owner-Ist that he completely lacks any sort of perspective, he appears to think that he will garner sympathy with drivel like this:

I HAVE just been to the top floor of our house. I so rarely go there, it always comes as a surprise… I came downstairs, thinking, as I always do, where do all these rooms come from? Do I really own all this? Sorry, I mean we. My wife is joint owner. In fact for many years she was paid more than me…

We bought our house, in north London, in 1963 — three storeys, Victorian, for £5,000, after I negotiated down the price from £5,250. I tell locals this all the time — just to make them sick…

Our house today is technically a mansion, even though it has just two bedrooms. (We each have a writing room, plus two sitting rooms.) On paper it must be worth about £2.5m. That’s what one in our street has gone for…

I do know two widows who, like us, have been here for years, never knowing what would happen to our property prices, who will simply not be able to afford to pay a mansion tax every year. They could be forced to sell…

I will pay, and can afford to, but it could mean I will give less to charity. I was thinking of giving again to the Cumbria Community Fund, but won’t if I suddenly have to find £20,000 a year for the rest of my life.

7 comments:

Lola said...

Intriguingly ' he could afford it'. Which implies he has a very high income. Hence with full on LVT replacing pretty well all other taxes especially income taxes he'd likely be not much worse off, if at all.

mombers said...

"I have just been to the top floor of our house. I so rarely go there, it always comes as a surprise… I came downstairs, thinking, as I always do, where do all these rooms come from? Do I really own all this? Sorry, I mean we. My wife is joint owner. In fact for many years she was paid more than me…"
Well if there's so much spare room, they could take in a lodger?????
And how much do they think that charitable donations have gone down under the ever increasing crushing weight of other taxes?

L fairfax said...

I didn't support the Mansion tax but after reading that I do now.
@"Well if there's so much spare room, they could take in a lodger?????"
Precisely. There are people in London live 6 to a 3 bed flat (I used to).

Steven_L said...

So his house is worth £2.5m and he will have to find £20,000 a year.

20,000/(2,500,000 - 2,000,000) = ?

20,000/500,000 = 0.04

Is 'mansion tax' really being proposed at 4%?

I thought the 'average' bill for a house in the £2m - £5m bracket was £250/month under the Balls proposal.

That's 0.2% on a £3.5m home isn't it?



Lola said...

It certainly is a 'Balls Proposal'. Not in the least as the twerp see MT/LVT as an extra tax. Words fail...

Kj said...

Haha, I love it. "If I have to mansion tax I might not be that nice anymore."

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, possibly not, as pension income is taxed at low-ish rates anyway, but the principle stands.

M, paying tax is a charitable donation in an of itself. Charities waste a larger % of their income on administration and advertising than the UK government does (which admittedly wastes about a quarter of what it raises in tax but charities are worse).

LF: "I didn't support the Mansion tax but after reading that I do now"

That's the spirit! That's why I posted it, the man is his own worst enemy.

SL, he's a Homey, he can say anything he likes. Like completely ignoring the fact that Ballsy says there will be a roll up option for Poor Widows In Mansions.

And yes, added to Council Tax, the overall rate for the £2m - £5m band is about 0.2%, i.e. one-fifth of the effective rate on homes at the bottom of Band A council tax.

L, small steps, small steps.

Kj, it's a good KLN though. Every now and then they think up a new one.