Cameron Rules Out Mansion Tax

Cameron Rules Out Mansion Tax.

On the BBC’s Andrew Marrs programme on Sunday morning, David Cameron confirmed that there would not be a new tax levied on high value properties, the so-called “Mansion Tax”.

This will put him in direct opposition to coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, who are for a mansion tax.  To placate them, we assume, Mr Cameron promised that further action would be taken to ensure that people pay their fair share.

Our view
A wealth tax is very common in Europe, but we already have a huge stamp duty land tax levied of high value properties of 5% when a property is bought.  Taxing people even more on top end properties would be vote courting only.  The biggest spend in this country is the welfare system, with over 30% of total government tax revenue going this way.  The more effective way to improve Britain’s finances is to look at benefits and close in on those that defraud the system or are a burden when they should not even be here.  Whether we like it not, the vast majority of people are not super wealthy, but collectively, they far outweigh the rich in terms of numbers and therefore revenue collection.  It will be the ‘man on the street’ that ends up paying, that’s you and us.  Taxing large properties will just not bring enough revenue in.