Best Of

'Treasury officials consider shake-up that could see tax paid by sellers of homes worth more than £500,000.'


https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/aug/19/explainer-potential-property-tax-stamp-duty

The sellers having made a five hundred percent profit on their home after 25 years coughing up would be more equitable than the poor old buyer having to front stamp duty at purchase.

This policy would be devastating for Labour in London and home counties marginal Labour seats, the AVERAGE London house price is now over £500k, the same in Hertfordshire

As it stands ANY government taxation kite is shot down by the hostile media and the Conservatives. I have no problem with a sales tax for a property that I have potentially nominally profited by £600,000 over 25 years (mortgage interest repayments notwithstanding).

We now seem to operate in a culture where we demand better social and civil services, better and more expensive defence but without any attempts at a taxation quid pro quo.

We want our cake and we want to eat it.

There have been years where my property went up in value by more than the wage I was being paid. The former attracts no tax, the latter does. Do we want to incentivise people to work, or to indulge in property speculation?

Anyone who suggests charging capital gains tax on private homes is signing their political obituary

Got to ask last time we looked into the idea did we find any countries that actually did charge capital gains tax. I think the few that did had so many allowances virtually no-one paid it...

The US do, but with rollover relief

That made actually makes perfect sense. While you are keep the capital invested in a primary residence (either this property or another) it is tax free. If you choose to take the money out of primary residential housing then it is any other capital gain and should be taxed as such

Edit: say you buy a PPR for £500k and sell it for £1m.

That’s a capital gain of £500k which is taxed at CGT rates.

However if you invest £1m into a new PPR you get to defer the tax liability until such time as the money is released from the new PPR. (The new PPR also has a tax base of £1m so any future gains on that would be separately taxable)

Essentially this helps facilities buying bigger houses, but when you downsize you crystallise a taxable gain and/or when a house is sold/transferred on death a liability is also triggered)

'Treasury officials consider shake-up that could see tax paid by sellers of homes worth more than £500,000.'


https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/aug/19/explainer-potential-property-tax-stamp-duty

The sellers having made a five hundred percent profit on their home after 25 years coughing up would be more equitable than the poor old buyer having to front stamp duty at purchase.

This policy would be devastating for Labour in London and home counties marginal Labour seats, the AVERAGE London house price is now over £500k, the same in Hertfordshire

As it stands ANY government taxation kite is shot down by the hostile media and the Conservatives. I have no problem with a sales tax for a property that I have potentially nominally profited by £600,000 over 25 years (mortgage interest repayments notwithstanding).

We now seem to operate in a culture where we demand better social and civil services, better and more expensive defence but without any attempts at a taxation quid pro quo.

We want our cake and we want to eat it.

There have been years where my property went up in value by more than the wage I was being paid. The former attracts no tax, the latter does. Do we want to incentivise people to work, or to indulge in property speculation?

We've wanted them to indulge in property speculation for the past few decades.
It may have been unspoken, but various policies have abetted it.
As a result we've a housing system which doesn't work.
Now something has to give.

@Steven_Swinford
Exclusive:

Rachel Reeves is considering hitting the owners of high-value properties with capital gains tax when they sell their homes

The chancellor is considering using the Autumn Budget to end the current exemption from capital gains tax that people enjoy when they sell their 'primary' residence

Under the plans the current exemption from capital gains tax, known as private residence relief, would come to an end for properties above a certain threshold

Higher-rate taxpayers would pay 24% of any gain they make from the increase in the value of their properties while basic rate taxpayers would have to pay 18%

https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1957904266481344523

Wouldn’t that discourage people from downsizing?

Yeah, no one would sell, in the hope that Labour get kicked out and it changes back next election. Not gonna work

Yup it will completely destroy any liquidity in the housing market because older people in mid sized houses will refuse to sell, why pay 24% CGT when they can pass up £1m on tax free.

Honestly, I can't see it happening anyway, this is just kite flying. A tax like this would completely destroy Labour's chances for a generation. Property taxes always go down very, very poorly with voters.

If Labour are really stuck for money perhaps they could consider not giving Mauritius several billion to take chunks of Britain, plus five billion a year on asylum seekers, plus tens of billions on welfare for foreigners, and on and on

But they won't do that because, reasons, human rights, traitors. This stuff is going to see them ANNIHILATED at the next GE

'Treasury officials consider shake-up that could see tax paid by sellers of homes worth more than £500,000.'


https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/aug/19/explainer-potential-property-tax-stamp-duty

Discussed this morning. The Guardian write-up of this is awful & confuses who is being taxed & when.

Under this proposal the seller is not being taxed - the buyer is being taxed an annual % property tax after they purchase the property as a replacement for stamp duty.

Full details are in the proposal linked to in the Guardian article: https://www.ukonward.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Onward-A-Fairer-Property-Tax.pdf

As I commented earlier, it honestly looks like the journalist in question shoved that document into an LLM, asked it to summarise the document & then published whatever bullshit the LLM spat out. A poor show frankly.

Presumably on top of their council tax ?

Who’d buy in those circumstances ?

If must have taxes - and sadly I don't really see any alternative - then I prefer taxes which discourage the inefficient use of scarce resources.

I really don't like taxes that prevent the market from clearing*: like stamp duty.

Gently discouraging people from having homes larger than they actually need is probably a net benefit. (Are there losers? Sure there are. But the winners in terms of greater housing availability are surely more than the losers.)

* Yes, I know the market always clears.

But how does CGT on primary residence encourage older people to downsize? Surely it does the opposite as they'll just lock in and pass their primary residence on tax free up to £1m.

Old people very rarely actually do downsize, unless its for health reasons. People without a mortgage are generally settled and happy in their homes and don't want to move.

We should simply be building lots more family homes for people to move into, rather than magically expecting old people to uproot their lives by downsizing which doesn't happen, so young people have no actual homes to move into.

"CGT on primary residence"

Where has that been mentioned?

In the Times: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/rachel-reeves-plans-to-tax-high-value-homes-to-plug-fiscal-black-hole-bmrdwr62c

Kite flying a proposal to impose it on properties > £1.5million.

Cliff edges are so dumb.

I would like to kidnap and torture politicians who implement them.

You have been fined 10 credits for repeated violations of the OSA.

A unit of the San Angeles ICE has been despatched to ProtectServe you.

Be well, citizen.

To claim universal credit you have to be actively seeking work and cannot turn down a job offer. The UK minimum wage is also now higher than ever at over £20,000 a year.

So there should be plenty of incentive for UK unemployed to take care home jobs now not just migrants, especially is there are now more out of work than there are job vacancies here. We should also follow the Japanese model of funding social care with insurance

Not so. There are around 3.4 million UC claimants who do. It need to work.

I concur your final sentence.

And how many of them are in any fit state to work?

How many of them would you want caring for your elderly rellies?

I don't know what the number of British people who shouldn't be working at all is, but it's somewhere higher than zero.

Don’t argue the toss with me over this. I’m just correcting HYUFD who said that to claim UC you need to be actively seeking work.

That’s not the case.

'Treasury officials consider shake-up that could see tax paid by sellers of homes worth more than £500,000.'


https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/aug/19/explainer-potential-property-tax-stamp-duty

Discussed this morning. The Guardian write-up of this is awful & confuses who is being taxed & when.

Under this proposal the seller is not being taxed - the buyer is being taxed an annual % property tax after they purchase the property as a replacement for stamp duty.

Full details are in the proposal linked to in the Guardian article: https://www.ukonward.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Onward-A-Fairer-Property-Tax.pdf

As I commented earlier, it honestly looks like the journalist in question shoved that document into an LLM, asked it to summarise the document & then published whatever bullshit the LLM spat out. A poor show frankly.

Presumably on top of their council tax ?

Who’d buy in those circumstances ?

If must have taxes - and sadly I don't really see any alternative - then I prefer taxes which discourage the inefficient use of scarce resources.

I really don't like taxes that prevent the market from clearing*: like stamp duty.

Gently discouraging people from having homes larger than they actually need is probably a net benefit. (Are there losers? Sure there are. But the winners in terms of greater housing availability are surely more than the losers.)

* Yes, I know the market always clears.

But how does CGT on primary residence encourage older people to downsize? Surely it does the opposite as they'll just lock in and pass their primary residence on tax free up to £1m.

Old people very rarely actually do downsize, unless its for health reasons. People without a mortgage are generally settled and happy in their homes and don't want to move.

We should simply be building lots more family homes for people to move into, rather than magically expecting old people to uproot their lives by downsizing which doesn't happen, so young people have no actual homes to move into.

Quite a few downsize by their late 70s, they don't want the hassle of a large detached house to run and would prefer a flat or bungalow, especially if they are a widow or widower too

'Treasury officials consider shake-up that could see tax paid by sellers of homes worth more than £500,000.'


https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/aug/19/explainer-potential-property-tax-stamp-duty

Discussed this morning. The Guardian write-up of this is awful & confuses who is being taxed & when.

Under this proposal the seller is not being taxed - the buyer is being taxed an annual % property tax after they purchase the property as a replacement for stamp duty.

Full details are in the proposal linked to in the Guardian article: https://www.ukonward.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Onward-A-Fairer-Property-Tax.pdf

As I commented earlier, it honestly looks like the journalist in question shoved that document into an LLM, asked it to summarise the document & then published whatever bullshit the LLM spat out. A poor show frankly.

Presumably on top of their council tax ?

Who’d buy in those circumstances ?

If must have taxes - and sadly I don't really see any alternative - then I prefer taxes which discourage the inefficient use of scarce resources.

I really don't like taxes that prevent the market from clearing*: like stamp duty.

Gently discouraging people from having homes larger than they actually need is probably a net benefit. (Are there losers? Sure there are. But the winners in terms of greater housing availability are surely more than the losers.)

* Yes, I know the market always clears.

But how does CGT on primary residence encourage older people to downsize? Surely it does the opposite as they'll just lock in and pass their primary residence on tax free up to £1m.

Old people very rarely actually do downsize, unless its for health reasons. People without a mortgage are generally settled and happy in their homes and don't want to move.

We should simply be building lots more family homes for people to move into, rather than magically expecting old people to uproot their lives by downsizing which doesn't happen, so young people have no actual homes to move into.

"CGT on primary residence"

Where has that been mentioned?

In the Times: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/rachel-reeves-plans-to-tax-high-value-homes-to-plug-fiscal-black-hole-bmrdwr62c

Kite flying a proposal to impose it on properties > £1.5million.

Cliff edges are so dumb.

I would like to kidnap and torture politicians who implement them.

I went here today. With my older daughter

She loves history, churches, geology, poetry, and surreal jokes



Which is kinda handy as these are many of my favourite things as well

Did you go up it? It costs, but it's worth it. Some of the paintings open up and you can look down...

It's just so incredibly beautiful

I've only beem once before, and that was about 25 years ago. So this was almost like my first visit

Stunning. Just stunning. When I first went in I thought, OK, this is like one of the great French cathedrals - Amiens or Reims - very lovely, but lacking Noom

And then we got to the Octagon and the Noom comes from the sheer effrontery of the architecture. The absurd, dreamy idea of this floating geometrical ceiling-from-heaven, my God the Noom kicks in then. Oh yes. Verily, and yea

Also, the Lady Chapel. Also, the fact it was founded in about 670AD by an Anglo-Saxon princess. Also, the Anglo-Saxon warlords and bishops interred in one of the prettier chantries, including some earl who died at the Battle of Maldon. Also, the presence nearby of Grimes Graves in the Breckland (which we both visited for the first time)

We had a brilliant day out. England can still wildly surprise on the upside, and then some. 90 minutes from the North Circular!

Ely must be in the top ten most-beautiful-cathedrals in the world

I believe when it was built, Ely was surrounded by water. Imagine approaching it in medieval times. The cathedral mirrored by its own reflection. Must have been stupendous.

Yes my wife was singing in Ely cathedral a few weeks ago, magical location