From The Guardian:
The leading Labour moderate Tristram Hunt moved to reclaim the issue of inequality for his wing of the Labour party, calling for a property wealth tax [and] reversal of cuts to inheritance tax... within 100 days of a Labour government coming to power.
Making the case for a property wealth tax to replace the existing regressive council tax, Hunt pointed out that 14 OECD countries – including the US – raise a recurring tax on the value of residential property. An annual 0.5% tax upon the value of each property – less than most countries – would completely cover the cost of replacing the council tax, he said.
The tax would be raised on owners not occupiers, taking “generation rent” completely out of local taxes altogether.
He might as well just call it "Domestic Rates" and have done with it.
As per usual he is way off piste with Inheritance Tax though. It raises laughably little money, so you could get rid of that as well and bump up the Domestic Rates from 0.5% to 0.55% and keep going from there. SDLT, CGT and the TV license fee are the next obvious candidates to be replaced, which would require a total rate of 0.65% or something like that.
My wife will be wondering why I am rejoicing at the fact that our Council Tax bill just went up by £1,700 a year, but needs must.
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