Politics Thread!

[pogo]

A mansion tax though would hit many people unable to pay it, as they're in a house which has appreciated in value but they have no other assets

They have a house. If you see where I'm coming from.

But they'd have to sell it. Someone who bought their house decades ago (so it was cheap when they bought it but very expensive now), but were retired and living on a pension for example. It's one thing to ask people already moving to pay a cut to the government. They can afford it; if they can't they may have to move somewhere cheaper. If lots of people can't afford prices then prices fall, the market adjusts. But someone just living in their house should not be forced to move out due to tax.

There are other problems too: many houses are bought not by people but by firms and trusts, for tax reasons. Others are owned by people not resident here. It can be hard to collect tax in such cases. The beneficial owners might be out of reach or unknown. The higher the value of the property the more likely this is. In particular the top end of the London market is dominated by foreign buyers. It could be a large proportion of any mansion tax will be uncollectible.

edit: and a perhaps even bigger problem is how do you value houses? It's trivial to do when they're sold, but highly contentious at other times, so much so that for the much smaller amount collected as council tax the 'rateable values' of houses haven't been updated in decades. It would be easy to bring them up to date but governments (local and national) fear a backlash from those having to pay more. It would be many times worse, with many going to court to fight valuations, for a much higher mansion tax.

[tufty]

But they'd have to sell it.

No they wouldn't. Siezure, sell off at rock-bottom price to cover the tax, re-estimate value, collect tax again. Simples.

There are other problems too: many houses are bought not by people but by firms and trusts, for tax reasons.

Oh, cry me a fucking river. If a "mansion tax" closes a "tax efficiency" loophole, I don't care how much of the south of England it puts out of a home. Bring it on.

[pogo]

What tax efficiency loophole? - except the one created by mansion tax whenever it becomes impossible to collect because the owners can't be found and you can't force a house to pay up.

But throwing people out? I think disproportionately the people genuinely unable to pay will be old, retired, and who've done nothing wrong. They're not rich, having bought their house when houses were reasonably priced. They or their family may have lived there for generations so the last time it was sold was a very long time ago.

Such people would find a ready outlet in whichever newspaper they went to. I don't know any government could survive a parade of poor pensioners being forced to suffer because of the tax. The govt. might then try and carve out an exception for those with no other assets but it then becomes massively more complex and collects even less. It also drives richer owners to restructure their finances so they don't pay, by putting the house in the name of e.g. their children who have no assets or income.

[KlaxonCow]

You've got to love this one.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ption.html

UKIP were having their first Welsh conference and Nigel Farage showed up two hours late, missing the reception.

What was his excuse? Too many immigrants on the M4!

Yes, far too many fuzzy-wuzzies from Bongo-bongo-land getting in his way, on his way over the Severn Bridge, apparently. "British roads for British people!"

I mean, seriously, how the fuck does this walking self-parody get any votes? Even the BNP wouldn't touch that sort of excuse with a bargepole.

"Sorry I'm late. Too many blacks and gays on the M25!".

[Governmentyard]

But throwing people out? I think disproportionately the people genuinely unable to pay will be old, retired, and who've done nothing wrong. They're not rich, having bought their house when houses were reasonably priced. They or their family may have lived there for generations so the last time it was sold was a very long time ago.

So they could sell it and make a healthy profit, then buy something more suitable.

[pogo]

So they could sell it and make a healthy profit, then buy something more suitable.

You really are pretty heartless if you think that. Imagine e.g. a retired couple in a house in London. They did not buy the house at the current price, they could not afford to. They bought it when they were young and have raised a family there. Or it was bought by their parents and they grew up there. They're not rich, or even well off, having just modest pensions.

The point is they can't afford to pay any mansion tax. The tax is on the value of their property, which has risen while they've been there because of London's bubbly property market, not because of anything they've done. London has grown significantly in recent years, swallowing up villages and small towns (physically and legally with the formation of Greater London) so it's possible when they bought they weren't even in London.

And you'd force them to move out of their home of several decades to pay a tax, through no fault of their own? Moving house is supposed to be the third most stressful thing you do in life, after death and divorce. It must be especially stressful if you're forced to move. I'm not sure how you'd even do it: you can't physically force go through the long and complex process of moving. You can send them a tax bill but for those unable to pay I think a large proportion simply won't do anything. And the government will end up having to take a lot of pensioners to court.

Political suicide, and I don't think any government would do it. They'd include exemptions for those unable to pay, which would then be loophole for accountants to exploit. Lots of rich foreigners would perfectly legally put the house in the names of their children, or their retired parents, making it impossible to collect the tax. The more expensive the house the more incentive there is to take such steps, so it could be tax can't be collected from the owners of most such properties.

[F-ZeroOne]

You've got to love this one.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ption.html

UKIP were having their first Welsh conference and Nigel Farage showed up two hours late, missing the reception.

What was his excuse? Too many immigrants on the M4!

Yes, far too many fuzzy-wuzzies from Bongo-bongo-land getting in his way, on his way over the Severn Bridge, apparently. "British roads for British people!"

I mean, seriously, how the fuck does this walking self-parody get any votes? Even the BNP wouldn't touch that sort of excuse with a bargepole.

"Sorry I'm late. Too many blacks and gays on the M25!".

Never mind, once they get in they'll be cancelling HS2 which will completely solve the traffic problem because... uh... can we talk about immigrants again?

[pogo]

What was his excuse? Too many immigrants on the M4!

He's right, in a way.

There are two ways to stop immigrants coming here. Not completely but if the government was serious about getting net migration down to 'tens of thousands', whatever it took then there are a couple of obvious routes.

Withdrawing from the EU would do it. It would let us impose any limits we wanted – restrict access to benefits, require work visas with stringent requirements or simply a limited number, that sort of thing. The problem is it would be ruinous to the economy, exiting the EU. There's no guarantee we could retain or get back any time soon the trade privileges and access to markets we now enjoy. We might hope for an arrangement like the EU has with Switzerland but that would take a long time to negotiate and other EU members would be in no hurry.

So all the vans plying the M4 taking British exports to Europe and bringing stuff back would sit idle. We'd see less people on the motorway going to Heathrow for a trip to Europe, fewer coming here. We'd see depressed activity across the economy, but especially trade and movement of people. So yes, the roads would be quieter !

Or even more directly just wreck the economy. Wrecking the economy would destroy jobs for immigrants, as well as for locals, and reduce congestion as less people could afford to drive. I don't know if any party is capable of this. UKIP maybe as they seem pretty inept, but once in power they would have enough economists at the BoE, OBR telling them what to do that they'd probably improve quickly. A Labour party determined to roll back the economy to the 1970s and reinstate clause IV but I don't think that's likely either.

More plausibly a combination of bad decisions and bad luck, as happened in 2008. Inward migration did drop briefly at the time, only to recover as our economy recovered while the eurozone didn't. Congestion also lessened during the recession (helped also by the spike in oil prices around that time). Another prolonged recession would reduce congestion and net migration, especially if the rest of the EU avoided one. Problem is the eurozone is doing so badly that it would be hard for the UK to do worse for a prolonged period no matter how bad our policies; our economy is just in a much better shape.

[tufty]

So they could sell it and make a healthy profit, then buy something more suitable.

You really are pretty heartless if you think that. Imagine e.g. a retired couple in a house in London. They did not buy the house at the current price, they could not afford to. They bought it when they were young and have raised a family there. Or it was bought by their parents and they grew up there. They're not rich, or even well off, having just modest pensions.

So what? They can sell their now-unsuitable house (as a house you use for bringing up kids is *not* the same as you use for mooching about waiting to die) and spend the rest of their time on earth being stinking rich, rather than scraping by on a "modest" pension. Cruising around the world on liners with other old cunts whining about how young people these days don't know how good they've got it, rather than hanging about in the supermarket stinking of piss because they can't afford to bathe, and their modest pension doesn't stretch to heating a 7 bedroom hovel in N16.

You can't take it with you, you know.

If they don't want to voluntarily accept an easier life, repossess their houses to pay their tax, and fuck 'em off into council-run housing.

[pogo]

If they don't want to voluntarily accept an easier life, repossess their houses to pay their tax, and fuck 'em off into council-run housing.

Again you too must be pretty heartless to think this acceptable. To kick people out of their home for nothing they've done.

I don't think the next government will be as heartless. Even if they were it would fail spectacularly if tried. It would be blocked by the courts under European human rights law. Or if not the first eviction would lead to such a groundswell of opposition, including mass demonstrations to stop it, that it would probably be the last, and the end of the government.

You don't need to go back that far for the last law stopped by mass protests, the poll tax that ended Thatcher's premiership. A 'granny tax' would prove even less popular and easier to rally around opposition to. It would be a gift to the opposition, e.g. the Tories, happy to associate themselves with keeping old people in their own homes.

[The ghost of raids past]

So they could sell it and make a healthy profit, then buy something more suitable.

You really are pretty heartless if you think that. Imagine e.g. a retired couple in a house in London. They did not buy the house at the current price, they could not afford to. They bought it when they were young and have raised a family there. Or it was bought by their parents and they grew up there. They're not rich, or even well off, having just modest pensions.

So what? They can sell their now-unsuitable house (as a house you use for bringing up kids is *not* the same as you use for mooching about waiting to die) and spend the rest of their time on earth being stinking rich, rather than scraping by on a "modest" pension. Cruising around the world on liners with other old cunts whining about how young people these days don't know how good they've got it, rather than hanging about in the supermarket stinking of piss because they can't afford to bathe, and their modest pension doesn't stretch to heating a 7 bedroom hovel in N16.

You can't take it with you, you know.

If they don't want to voluntarily accept an easier life, repossess their houses to pay their tax, and fuck 'em off into council-run housing.

To realise the capital they would have to move along way away from London. Possibly away from friends and family and all because they were lucky where their house was located

A mansion tax is an unfair tax thats only supported as alot of the supporters will never be in a situation to pay it.

[pogo]

Yes. The name 'mansion tax' is one dreamed up by lefties, to make it sound like it's targeted only at rich people in mansions. But 10 per cent of the 'mansions' worth more than £2million are actually one or two bedroom flats (and that was written over 12 months ago, prices have risen in London since). High prices are all to do with location. Anyone forced to sell would face heavy costs in addition to the tax, so would have much less to spend, and might also lose out due to the rising market. They'd have to move well out of London.

[pogo]

On another topic, you can read the US Senate report into torture here:

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/stud ... study1.pdf

or here

http://gia.guim.co.uk/2014/12/torture-r ... report.pdf

(same report both places, the second link seems slow but it is a local one for most of us)

[gravy]

If they don't want to voluntarily accept an easier life, repossess their houses to pay their tax, and fuck 'em off into council-run housing.

Again you too must be pretty heartless to think this acceptable. To kick people out of their home for nothing they've done.

That's exactly what you advocated for people unable to stay in their homes because of the bedroom tax.

So why isn't that heartless yet this is?

[pogo]

There are many differences with the 'bedroom tax'. Most importantly it's a benefit. I.e. it's taxpayers' money paying their rent. There is not an unlimited pot of money for benefits; there have to be limits and this is one.

Also if someone on housing benefit receives more because they need a bigger house for e.g. children that should not be forever at the taxpayers' expense. When the children are grown up and they no longer need the extra space they no longer need the extra housing benefit for that space. It's up to them if they move to save money or stay and pay for the extra space themselves.

It's completely different from the mansion tax as that, as described in vague plans released by the parties, would have nothing to do with ability to pay or housing need, so it could easily be levied on a retired couple in a small flat. Also while the average 'bedroom tax' is £14/week under not unreasonable assumptions the average mansion tax is £240/week. £14 may be affordable i.e. you have a choice. A pensioner facing a £12,000 bill won't have much choice but to sell.