theRatandMouse - London's property blog

The Tory Bow Group have come up with an interesting way to replace council tax and, er, capital gains, inheritance tax, stamp duty, TV license... it's a 1% annual tax on the value of your property. It's surprisingly simple, and it's surprisingly socialist, radically shifting the tax burden away from the north and to the south, where house prices are higher. The Guardian suggests David Cameron, and his wealthy London based supporters, might be less than delighted with the Bow Group's ideas.

You prefix "capital gains tax" with an "er".

If you don't have half an hour to read the full report at www.bowgroup.org, let me explain

of course main residences are not liable to CGT, but second and holiday homes are. If LVT is designed to encourage efficient use of housing, i.e. people with holiday homes will say "sod the tax, let's sell up and spend the �2,000 we save on staying in a hotel" it would be manifestly unfair to make them pay CGT as well as suffering the SDLT hit (indirectly)

The tax system should be designed to pull in one direction only