Simon Jenkings in yesterday's Evening Standard:
The new proposed rate of £3,000 ['Mansion Tax' on homes worth £2 - £5 million] will come on top of the average of £2,000 that H-band properties already pay in council tax. Indeed, London valuations are so out of date that many bands E, F and G may pay mansion tax.
But the total tax will still be way below what such properties would be paying had the old rates been indexed rather than abolished (for the poll tax) in 1989. Tony Travers, the local government expert at LSE, estimates that the rates on “mansion-taxable” properties would today be in the range of £6,000 to £20,000 a year.
It's not that far off actually, if you add Council Tax and Mansion Tax together. So anybody who bought pre-1989, i.e. all the Poor Widows In Mansions, has no reason to complain; that's what they signed up for.
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