wages have roughly doubled since 1980. House prices have gone up by about x10
A 'council tax' based on the number of people living in a property could be called a 'poll tax'. Remind me how that turned out last time.....
Yes it turned out badly, which to me is somewhat ironic considering it would seem to be a fairer way of charging for services. 4 adults in a property generally make more use of services than 2, so why shouldn't the cost be per capita?
Income tax. Capital Gains tax at the same rate as your income tax band. A tax based on the value of your property. Company taxation based on sales in the relevant country. Remove the triple lock on pensions.
A combination of the above would work. I would be worse off, but at least it would be fairer.
The one I would mainly question is "A tax based on the value of your property". Our house is now valued at about 6 times what it was when we bought it, but our income is probably lower now as I am a pensioner and my wife only works part time. Is the suggestoin that we pay 6 times more tax in real terms?
The one I would mainly question is "A tax based on the value of your property". Our house is now valued at about 6 times what it was when we bought it, but our income is probably lower now as I am a pensioner and my wife only works part time. Is the suggestoin that we pay 6 times more tax in real terms?
Or sell it. The argument is that people who have assets but don't want to realise them are expecting those with no assets to subsidise them.
Yes it turned out badly, which to me is somewhat ironic considering it would seem to be a fairer way of charging for services. 4 adults in a property generally make more use of services than 2, so why shouldn't the cost be per capita?
Because 2 people living in a mansion would pay the same as two people living in a bedsit. If you don't relate it to 'worth' then people in big houses benefit, which, not unreasonably, is seen as unfair.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
wages have roughly doubled since 1980. House prices have gone up by about x10
According to Google the average wage in 1980 was £6k and now is c.£31k so 5x more. I had a 'good job in a bank' in 1980 and my salary was £2.5k. Current entry level salaries are around £25k so actually 10x more.
I bought a house in 2004 we did it with two minimum wage incomes of around 9k We had to move from Plymouth up to Darwin and buy a terraced two up two down, but it was possible we could not afford to do it down south the house cost 36k and we took a 30k mortgage which would have been just under 2x our annual income, I think the limit we were offered was 3x but I didn't want a mortgage over 30k. We sold the house 18months later for 52k a huge increase in value, totally unsustainable.
Here in Denmark houses are pretty cheap, rents are extortionate(compaired to house prices), My house which has 5 bedrooms 4 receptions, 5 acres of land and a huge barn plus garage etc. cost £70k 3 years ago. to rent a one bedroom flat here you will pay 600 per month with 6 months deposit that you will almost certainly lose. Almost everyone owns. The property market is controlled by the government who controls the loans, they are stepping in to sort out an issue where banks will not loan on rural properties as they don't think they will hold value as no one will buy them in the future (as no one can get a loan on them because banks...) but they were also talking about measures to stop price inflation, the issue they have is it's not the entire country effected only towns, and holiday areas. Just them talking about it caused the market to slow substantially.
Wherever you raise the taxes it's going to cause inflationary issues, but reducing taxes can cause increases in revenue, perhaps they should look that way instead.
Property value isn't the rebuild value - the rebuild value is prone to different forces than current market value isn't it? At the moment I would assume that house building costs are going up - materials for whatever reason are going up, and I will wager that post brexit and with a shortage of building trades, the wages will also go up. But I only mentioned the rebuild value anyway as to me that's a way to judge if people in general can afford property, as if they can't afford the base build cost, they will never have a hope in hell of affording the market value (not unless the market had such a crash that prices were below cost).
I don't know enough about why taxes were split out into groups, and I'm not sure how much it would raise (if anything) but I would start anyway by merging taxes. Treat all income as simply that and tax it accordingly. Shares, rental - whatever - all get bundled into your income pot and taxed at whatever rate. Stop corporates being able to choose where and how they're taxed. If they sell in this country, they're taxed in this country (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/07/amazon-uk-arm-pays-38m-more-corporation-tax-despite-19bn-sales-rise)
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A 'council tax' based on the number of people living in a property could be called a 'poll tax'. Remind me how that turned out last time.....
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Yes it turned out badly, which to me is somewhat ironic considering it would seem to be a fairer way of charging for services. 4 adults in a property generally make more use of services than 2, so why shouldn't the cost be per capita?
The one I would mainly question is "A tax based on the value of your property". Our house is now valued at about 6 times what it was when we bought it, but our income is probably lower now as I am a pensioner and my wife only works part time. Is the suggestoin that we pay 6 times more tax in real terms?
Because 2 people living in a mansion would pay the same as two people living in a bedsit. If you don't relate it to 'worth' then people in big houses benefit, which, not unreasonably, is seen as unfair.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
According to Google the average wage in 1980 was £6k and now is c.£31k so 5x more.
I had a 'good job in a bank' in 1980 and my salary was £2.5k. Current entry level salaries are around £25k so actually 10x more.
In the same period average house prices have risen by a factor of 21 from £12,400 to £265,600.
In 1978 the average house cost 3.4 times the average salary. Today is 9 times more.