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BoJo would find it more challenging facing Angela Rayner – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So wouldn't second home owning couples have one of the couple resident in each property?

    Just have a tax of 1% on the value of each property per year, and get rid of banding.
    That's much more sensible. We used to call it the 'rates'. The initial valuation exercise would be a bit of an issue, though.
    Somehow we manage it in NZ

    My Dad’s property is “re-rated” every year and if he doesn’t agree he can appeal.

    One presumes in the age of Zoopla it is easier than ever.

    Yes, it's possible to do, of course. But in the UK we start from no existing records. I blame Maggie.
    And yet weirdly I can find several websites which tell me what my house is “worth”.
    Yeah. Websites.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    edited September 2021
    Farooq said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    Isle of Man Election Night

    https://www.iomelections.com/2021/live/

    PS - any comments on Manx accent?

    PPS - and might IoM play a major role in UK application to TTP, given that UK's Pacific link is Pitcairn Island, where many locals are of Manx heritage?

    I remember an ill fated Manxman at my Medical School who took the Rugby Club on tour of his island. They all got deported when the Rugby Club decided to take the 3 legged sign that they saw as a souvenir. Unfortunately it was on their parliament...
    Coolest thing about them is, their judges are called Deemsters. I think that has a real Dredd vibe about it.
    Deem stems from the same word as doom. Doomsday derives its apocalyptic mean from the sense of judgement day.
    So, more Terminator than Dredd...
    But there is a Judge Doom, IIRC. And Judge Dredd is inherently a judge-on-the-spot chappie anyway.

    Edit: Ignore. Cross-wiring in brain. Doom is in Roger Rabbit. Apols.
  • And while I’m steaming.

    You know who did very well out of the pandemic?

    AMAZON, GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, NETFLIX.

    That swooshing sound is all the cash needed for people to actually eat and house themselves swirling it’s way to San Francisco so that Zuckerberg can continue to fuck the public sphere.

    Actually Facebook are buggered.

    Thanks to Apple.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-drops-warning-apple-ad-150102716.html
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    edited September 2021

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So wouldn't second home owning couples have one of the couple resident in each property?

    Just have a tax of 1% on the value of each property per year, and get rid of banding.
    That's much more sensible. We used to call it the 'rates'. The initial valuation exercise would be a bit of an issue, though.
    Somehow we manage it in NZ

    My Dad’s property is “re-rated” every year and if he doesn’t agree he can appeal.

    One presumes in the age of Zoopla it is easier than ever.

    Yes, it's possible to do, of course. But in the UK we start from no existing records. I blame Maggie.
    And yet weirdly I can find several websites which tell me what my house is “worth”.
    Yeah. Websites.
    They’re not very wrong though.
    So far as I can tell.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,906
    kle4 said:

    Nothing is going to happen to these cnuts, is it?

    Hugo Lowell
    @hugolowell
    Wow — Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon says on his War Room podcast he met with Trump and Giuliani the night before Jan. 6 to discuss how to “kill the Biden presidency”, a potential admission of sedition.
    6:25 pm · 23 Sep 2021

    They might return to power, that's not nothing.

    But punishment? No.
    I've justed started reading Bob Woodward's first book about the Trump Presidency, — Fear, which is followed by Rage and the recently published Peril — even less than 20% of the way into the book I'm thinking "why the hell aren't these arseholes in prison?"

    Even as someone who spent way too much time following what Trump was up to and reading article after article about him it's shocking to see just how dangerous Trump was from the get-go. The first thing in the book is staff hiding memos from Trump so that he doesn't inadvertantly prevent the US from getting an early warning of a North Korean nuclear attack.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129
    dixiedean said:

    geoffw said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    Renting doesn't increase crime rates in and of itself.
    Or Germany would be unliveable.
    Germany clearly is unliveable, otherwise they wouldn't have kept trying to invade their neighbours.
  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So you want those who can't buy a home, but have to rent, to pay a load more rent? A bit odd, surely?
    The owner would pay the surcharge not the tenant. If the owner doesn't want to do so, they can always put the property on the market allowing the tenants to buy it.
    Don't be silly. Many people have to rent, for multiple reasons. Increased costs will just be passed on to them, like any other costs.
    Only if they could get away with passing it on, which they might not be able to do so eg if more houses are coming on the market.

    Plus I'd exempt Councils from the Tax (so they'd be able to "compete" at an advantage) since Council-owned homes have Right To Buy so the issue its addressing has been removed.
  • And while I’m steaming.

    You know who did very well out of the pandemic?

    AMAZON, GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, NETFLIX.

    That swooshing sound is all the cash needed for people to actually eat and house themselves swirling it’s way to San Francisco so that Zuckerberg can continue to fuck the public sphere.

    Actually Facebook are buggered.

    Thanks to Apple.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-drops-warning-apple-ad-150102716.html
    Good.
    Let’s tax the fuckers to till their pips squeak.
  • Farooq said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
    No. Wake up.

    For years we were assured that the very wealthy were there on merit, that wealth was a return on “hard work” and “talent”, and that wealth would trickle down.

    If it was true-ish once, it’s a bizarre lie now.

    Globalisation, financialisation, and regressive tax regimes have sustained and nourished an elite who get richer and richer and richer.

    Meanwhile, those on universal credit are about to face a double whammy of income cuts and energy price hikes.

    It’s indefensible.
    Yes, indeed. Piketty regards himself, ultimately, as a defender of capitalism, for instance, and his work on the increasing concentration and feudalisation of quite a sizeable proportion of wealth is basically indisputable.
    I'm about as far from a socialist as it's possible to get, and even I am infuriated by how the super-rich benefit from QE, asset inflation and yet get away with paying bugger all.

    It's about fairness for me. That's it. If the tax base changes then so must the tax.

    We've introduced plenty of new taxes in the past, including income tax, NI and VAT, let's work out how to tap it mechanistically first and we can then politically debate the rate.
    The essential truth of this is uncontrovertible.

    Are the Labour Party preparing the ideological ground for this?

    My arse they are.
    You see, on here tonight we've got myself, yourself and Casino all saying taxes should probably go up and asset based taxes should also be examined seriously. Where the fuck are Labour on this?! Why aren't they out there sticking 5% annual surcharges on landlords, why aren't they putting up the landlord stamp duty charge to 10% instead of the pitiful 3%?

    I've been waiting for 18 months for Starmer to say anything about who is going to pay for COVID. The government has decided it will be the workers, which has lost my vote, Labour have an opportunity to win it by taxing the rentier asset owning classes but just seem to be afraid of their own shadow.
    To be fair to Labour, the last election with an actual socialist in charge didn't go very well. Which way were they supposed to go after 2019?
    An actual socialist who had stupid ideas and also didn't actually address any of these issues but instead said he would raise £100bn from people earning £80k+. We have the government, the Tory party, saying that they're putting up taxes but are going to feather the beds of their client vote. Where is Labour with their tax plan to say "everyone pays" or "those with the most property/assets will pay the most" it's not even very difficult and will get IMO, a lot of support if it's done right.
    It will not get the support that matters.

    The 50+ property owning plurality are spread well enough around the country that with FPTP you need to be wining a good percentage of them for a majority government of English/Welsh MPs.

    People overlook that the oldies in red wall seats swung the North towards Boris. The working younglings voted Corbyn.
    Which group is more winnable for Labour? Retired, brexiteers from the North and Midlands who don't like woke Londoners or younger centre right workers across the country who are being hit by new taxes?
    Because there will be no wealth tax with a Conservative government. For Labour to win a majority they need a good wedge of the Boomer vote and the v-unfavourable demographics won't be changing for twenty plus years.

    FWIW I think Labours only hope is an appeal to fairness, its one of our most base emotions and could cut through CCHQ's Topham Guerin Boomer memes.
    Strictly speaking, we already have one. You can't escape council tax, and it is based on the value of your property (if ludicrously backdated to 1991) and you must pay thousands every year.

    It has exemptions for students, disabled people and those on very low incomes, and I suspect similar ones would apply to an asset tax.
    Except for renters. They pay without having the asset.
    True.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    The simplest solution is to scrap council tax and stamp duty and replace it with 0.5%* per annum tax on property.

    *Or whatever balances. The idea is to *start* down this line, not a massive course correction overnight.

    Tax is paid by any property owner, including companies.

    If old biddies can’t afford it, they can borrow against the value of their property from a government owned bank set up expressly for this purpose.

    These ideas are politically suicidal. People who rent don't want to face large taxes once they achieve home ownership.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,399
    edited September 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    dixiedean said:

    geoffw said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    Renting doesn't increase crime rates in and of itself.
    Or Germany would be unliveable.
    Germany clearly is unliveable, otherwise they wouldn't have kept trying to invade their neighbours.
    Good point. Lebensraum. Hadn't thought of that.
    Think how the history of 20th century Euope would have been different if they'd taken a serious look at mass owner-occupying.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,364

    ydoethur said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So you want those who can't buy a home, but have to rent, to pay a load more rent? A bit odd, surely?
    The owner would pay the surcharge not the tenant. If the owner doesn't want to do so, they can always put the property on the market allowing the tenants to buy it.
    I think the suggestion is they would put up rents to cover it, so all it would do is shift the payment by the tenant from council tax to rent.
    In part, depending on rental price elasticity.

    House prices would also fall, or at least growth would be tempered, due to the new recurring liability.

    Prices aren’t terribly elastic in most of the country, at least, as far as I can judge. The killer is the shortage of good alternatives.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,364
    dixiedean said:

    rcs1000 said:

    dixiedean said:

    geoffw said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    Renting doesn't increase crime rates in and of itself.
    Or Germany would be unliveable.
    Germany clearly is unliveable, otherwise they wouldn't have kept trying to invade their neighbours.
    Good point. Lebensraum. Hadn't thought of that.
    Think how the history of 20th century Euope would have been different if they'd taken a serious look at mass owner-occupying.
    They were just in too much of a Russia to sort it out within their existing borders.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    edited September 2021
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So you want those who can't buy a home, but have to rent, to pay a load more rent? A bit odd, surely?
    The owner would pay the surcharge not the tenant. If the owner doesn't want to do so, they can always put the property on the market allowing the tenants to buy it.
    I think the suggestion is they would put up rents to cover it, so all it would do is shift the payment by the tenant from council tax to rent.
    In part, depending on rental price elasticity.

    House prices would also fall, or at least growth would be tempered, due to the new recurring liability.

    Prices aren’t terribly elastic in most of the country, at least, as far as I can judge. The killer is the shortage of good alternatives.
    I think they are, actually.
    Was very interesting to see Covid impact on rents locally.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,978
    edited September 2021
    When you get so progressive you accidentally become regressive

    https://twitter.com/Liv_Boeree/status/1440956684512501762?s=19

    (they deleted the words “woman” and “she” out of Ginsburg’s quote *about women’s rights* because they’re apparently too offensive)

    https://twitter.com/Liv_Boeree/status/1440957060330496000?s=19

    For those that don't know Liv Boeree is astrophysic PhD and former professional poker player and lets just say definitely not a GB News viewer type....
  • darkage said:

    The simplest solution is to scrap council tax and stamp duty and replace it with 0.5%* per annum tax on property.

    *Or whatever balances. The idea is to *start* down this line, not a massive course correction overnight.

    Tax is paid by any property owner, including companies.

    If old biddies can’t afford it, they can borrow against the value of their property from a government owned bank set up expressly for this purpose.

    These ideas are politically suicidal. People who rent don't want to face large taxes once they achieve home ownership.
    Except they already have to pay Council Tax today. And only owners would pay in the future which for an owner-occupier would be no different to being obliged to pay Council Tax as it stands.

    The ones who'd lose out are those who have a property empire. Oh well, they can pay their dues, or they can sell up and the people who live in the homes can buy them instead - and no green areas need building on for that purpose so everyone who objects to planning permission being granted should love that!
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,179
    darkage said:

    The simplest solution is to scrap council tax and stamp duty and replace it with 0.5%* per annum tax on property.

    *Or whatever balances. The idea is to *start* down this line, not a massive course correction overnight.

    Tax is paid by any property owner, including companies.

    If old biddies can’t afford it, they can borrow against the value of their property from a government owned bank set up expressly for this purpose.

    These ideas are politically suicidal. People who rent don't want to face large taxes once they achieve home ownership.
    You realise 0.5% is lower than current council tax for plenty ?
  • darkage said:

    The simplest solution is to scrap council tax and stamp duty and replace it with 0.5%* per annum tax on property.

    *Or whatever balances. The idea is to *start* down this line, not a massive course correction overnight.

    Tax is paid by any property owner, including companies.

    If old biddies can’t afford it, they can borrow against the value of their property from a government owned bank set up expressly for this purpose.

    These ideas are politically suicidal. People who rent don't want to face large taxes once they achieve home ownership.
    Waaah.

    Either accept a very modest form of wealth levy or tax the productive economy into the ground.

    “Tax wealth, before income”,

    That’s what Keir should say.

    At the same time as announcing a TAX CUT for average income earners.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    edited September 2021
    Isle of Man GE 2021 - House of Keys

    If I heard right, based on exit polling ten new members elected and five incumbents defeated, including three cabinet ministers.

    BTW, the discussion of island issues as Election Night panel waits for actual election returns is pretty impressive for a small jurisdiction.

    https://www.iomelections.com/2021/live/
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,179

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So wouldn't second home owning couples have one of the couple resident in each property?

    Just have a tax of 1% on the value of each property per year, and get rid of banding.
    That's much more sensible. We used to call it the 'rates'. The initial valuation exercise would be a bit of an issue, though.
    Somehow we manage it in NZ

    My Dad’s property is “re-rated” every year and if he doesn’t agree he can appeal.

    One presumes in the age of Zoopla it is easier than ever.

    Yes, it's possible to do, of course. But in the UK we start from no existing records. I blame Maggie.
    And yet weirdly I can find several websites which tell me what my house is “worth”.
    Yeah. Websites.
    The banks have to evaluate someones house every time they remortgage to calculate LTV. Pretending this is some special hurdle is ludicrous.
  • And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Boris more popular than the Tories, Labour more popular than Sir Keir

    “Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer remain in minus net ratings, with Boris Johnson on -5 (up 1 point from last week) and Keir Starmer down 3 points in a week to -12.

    Boris Johnson slightly out performs his own party with the Conservative Party on a -10 net favourability rating, down 3 points from last week, while Labour slightly outperforms its leader with the party on a -7 point net rating, down 3 points in the past week.”

    https://www.survation.com/conservatives-hold-5-point-lead-over-labour-going-into-conference-season/
  • When you get so progressive you accidentally become regressive

    https://twitter.com/Liv_Boeree/status/1440956684512501762?s=19

    (they deleted the words “woman” and “she” out of Ginsburg’s quote *about women’s rights* because they’re apparently too offensive)

    https://twitter.com/Liv_Boeree/status/1440957060330496000?s=19

    For those that don't know Liv Boeree is astrophysic PhD and former professional poker player and lets just say definitely not a GB News viewer type....

    https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1440964281089019904
    The following songs have been approved by the
    @ACLU
    . 🎶

    “No [Person] No Cry” - Bob Marley

    “I’m Every [Person]” - Chaka Khan

    “Isn’t [They] Lovely” - Stevie Wonder

    “Does Your [Birthing Person] Know” - ABBA

    “Bring Your [Offspring With A Cervix] To The Slaughter” - Iron Maiden
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So wouldn't second home owning couples have one of the couple resident in each property?

    Just have a tax of 1% on the value of each property per year, and get rid of banding.
    That's much more sensible. We used to call it the 'rates'. The initial valuation exercise would be a bit of an issue, though.
    Somehow we manage it in NZ

    My Dad’s property is “re-rated” every year and if he doesn’t agree he can appeal.

    One presumes in the age of Zoopla it is easier than ever.

    Yes, it's possible to do, of course. But in the UK we start from no existing records. I blame Maggie.
    And yet weirdly I can find several websites which tell me what my house is “worth”.
    This is a completely solved problem except for niches cases such as newly built extensions - that isn’t covered by council tax either
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,708

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,364

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So you want those who can't buy a home, but have to rent, to pay a load more rent? A bit odd, surely?
    The owner would pay the surcharge not the tenant. If the owner doesn't want to do so, they can always put the property on the market allowing the tenants to buy it.
    I think the suggestion is they would put up rents to cover it, so all it would do is shift the payment by the tenant from council tax to rent.
    In part, depending on rental price elasticity.

    House prices would also fall, or at least growth would be tempered, due to the new recurring liability.

    Prices aren’t terribly elastic in most of the country, at least, as far as I can judge. The killer is the shortage of good alternatives.
    I think they are, actually.
    Was very interesting to see Covid impact on rents locally.
    I think I’m right in saying you’re in London? I wouldn’t extrapolate nationwide from there.

    From a personal point of view it’s striking to note how sticky rents are in South Staffs (where I live) Gloucs (where I let a house) much of the north of England (where my cousin lets several properties) and South and West Wales where many of my friends live.
  • eek said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So wouldn't second home owning couples have one of the couple resident in each property?

    Just have a tax of 1% on the value of each property per year, and get rid of banding.
    That's much more sensible. We used to call it the 'rates'. The initial valuation exercise would be a bit of an issue, though.
    Somehow we manage it in NZ

    My Dad’s property is “re-rated” every year and if he doesn’t agree he can appeal.

    One presumes in the age of Zoopla it is easier than ever.

    Yes, it's possible to do, of course. But in the UK we start from no existing records. I blame Maggie.
    And yet weirdly I can find several websites which tell me what my house is “worth”.
    This is a completely solved problem except for niches cases such as newly built extensions - that isn’t covered by council tax either
    Simple. Don’t tax them.
    At least not until the property is subsequently sold on.

    The simpler the tax the better for everyone.
    Taxation 101.
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So you want those who can't buy a home, but have to rent, to pay a load more rent? A bit odd, surely?
    The owner would pay the surcharge not the tenant. If the owner doesn't want to do so, they can always put the property on the market allowing the tenants to buy it.
    I think the suggestion is they would put up rents to cover it, so all it would do is shift the payment by the tenant from council tax to rent.
    In part, depending on rental price elasticity.

    House prices would also fall, or at least growth would be tempered, due to the new recurring liability.

    Prices aren’t terribly elastic in most of the country, at least, as far as I can judge. The killer is the shortage of good alternatives.
    I think they are, actually.
    Was very interesting to see Covid impact on rents locally.
    I think I’m right in saying you’re in London? I wouldn’t extrapolate nationwide from there.

    From a personal point of view it’s striking to note how sticky rents are in South Staffs (where I live) Gloucs (where I let a house) much of the north of England (where my cousin lets several properties) and South and West Wales where many of my friends live.
    Fair enough.
    Still, renters won’t be paying council tax under my proposal so it’s swings and roundabouts.

  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    edited September 2021
    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.
  • darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
  • geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    Foxy said:

    Isle of Man Election Night

    https://www.iomelections.com/2021/live/

    PS - any comments on Manx accent?

    PPS - and might IoM play a major role in UK application to TTP, given that UK's Pacific link is Pitcairn Island, where many locals are of Manx heritage?

    I remember an ill fated Manxman at my Medical School who took the Rugby Club on tour of his island. They all got deported when the Rugby Club decided to take the 3 legged sign that they saw as a souvenir. Unfortunately it was on their parliament...
    The Manx do seem to suffer somewhat with students.

    My brother was on the Middlesboro’ Uni Rugby tour to the IoM in 1998, which ended badly for ‘reasons’, and the team were, if not deported, told that their welcome would not be extended in future.

    The following year, the Middlesboro’ Uni Ten Pin Bowling Team, turned up in the IoM… They didn’t bowl any 300s, but were quite good at rugby.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,399
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So you want those who can't buy a home, but have to rent, to pay a load more rent? A bit odd, surely?
    The owner would pay the surcharge not the tenant. If the owner doesn't want to do so, they can always put the property on the market allowing the tenants to buy it.
    I think the suggestion is they would put up rents to cover it, so all it would do is shift the payment by the tenant from council tax to rent.
    In part, depending on rental price elasticity.

    House prices would also fall, or at least growth would be tempered, due to the new recurring liability.

    Prices aren’t terribly elastic in most of the country, at least, as far as I can judge. The killer is the shortage of good alternatives.
    I think they are, actually.
    Was very interesting to see Covid impact on rents locally.
    I think I’m right in saying you’re in London? I wouldn’t extrapolate nationwide from there.

    From a personal point of view it’s striking to note how sticky rents are in South Staffs (where I live) Gloucs (where I let a house) much of the north of England (where my cousin lets several properties) and South and West Wales where many of my friends live.
    Been looking with my eldest for a property to rent as they have finished Uni.
    6 month's up front rent. And that bar gets you on a shortlist for an interview with the landlord.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,906

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    I get the intent, but if the regulations stop the adoption of something better that would be immensely stupid.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    And it provides appropriate housing for transient people, like Fox jr2.

    It really doesn't make sense to buy a place if you are going to be in it for less than three years or so.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,179
    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
  • darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,871
    Evening all :)

    Iceland votes on Saturday and there's a blizzard (sorry) of polls out this evening. The dilemma is the one with the most recent fieldwork had the smallest sample (just 909) while Gallup has polled 3,845 which is roughly 1.5% of the total number who voted in the last election.

    In UK terms, that would be the equivalent of a poll with a sample of 495,000 people which is a tad larger than most UK polls.

    Said Gallup poll has the following changes from the 2017 Althing election:

    Fieldwork 13/9-19/9

    Independence Party: 21.2% (-4.0)
    Progressive Party: 13.2% (+2.5)
    Social Democrats: 12.7% (+0.6)
    Pirates: 11.5% (+2.3)
    Left-Green Movement: 10.2% (-6.7)
    Reform Party: 10.2% (+3.5)
    Socialist Party: 7.3% (+7.3)
    People's Party: 7.0% (+0.1)
    Centre Party: 6.2% (-4.7)

    The governing parties (Independence, Left-Green and Progressive) are are down 8.2% from 2019 so will we see a new coalition come to Government?

    The more recent fieldwork (22nd and 23rd September) comes from MMR with a sample of just 909.

    Independence Party: 21.8% (-3.4)
    Progressive Party: 14.3% (+3.6)
    Social Democrats: 13.9% (+1.8)
    Left-Green Movement: 11.0% (-5.9)
    Pirates: 10.7% (+1.5)
    Reform Party: 10.1% (+3.4)
    People's Party: 7.3% (+0.4)
    Socialist Party: 7.0% (+7.0)
    Centre Party: 4.7% (-6.2)

    With MMR, the governing coalition is down 6.7 points.

    As we all know, Iceland has six multi-member constituencies returning nine members each using the D'Hondt method with a further 9 "levelling" seats. There is a 5% threshold so Centre would be out based on MMR but safe based on Gallup.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,708

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
    Twaddle.
    You sometimes have some good insights and persuasive arguments. This is not one of them.

  • darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Wealth taxes dont kill the rental sector, they would simply bring about a touch more balance. I don't think anyone supporting them on here doesnt want there to be a private rental sector at all, many just want it to be smaller. The PRS has expanded massively over the last 20 years, it seems incredibly unlikely that it is now at an optimal level that must be protected at all costs.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,794
    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    The UK existed with a tiny private rental sector before 2000. Private rental is a huge brake on investment on existing property, owner occupiers are much more likely to spend money on a property than a landlord.
  • FT: BoE predicts inflation to pass 4% as interest rate rises move ‘closer’ #TomorrowsPapersToday https://t.co/dDDX1lUTaO

    Inflation is a killer for government ratings.
  • glw said:

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    I get the intent, but if the regulations stop the adoption of something better that would be immensely stupid.
    Its a solution looking for a problem.

    Twenty years ago when every phone had a different charger that was stupid. But consumers said it was stupid and the industry sorted it out.

    Now there's two modern standards (USB-C and lightning) and a third older standard (Micro USB) which just shows how standards need to change and why sticking to only one is stupid. If this had happened years ago would we have all still had to stick with Micro USB?

    Why can't consumers choose from the choice of just two modern standards? Its not like there's thirty different ones anymore.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    Iceland votes on Saturday and there's a blizzard (sorry) of polls out this evening. The dilemma is the one with the most recent fieldwork had the smallest sample (just 909) while Gallup has polled 3,845 which is roughly 1.5% of the total number who voted in the last election.

    In UK terms, that would be the equivalent of a poll with a sample of 495,000 people which is a tad larger than most UK polls.

    Said Gallup poll has the following changes from the 2017 Althing election:

    Fieldwork 13/9-19/9

    Independence Party: 21.2% (-4.0)
    Progressive Party: 13.2% (+2.5)
    Social Democrats: 12.7% (+0.6)
    Pirates: 11.5% (+2.3)
    Left-Green Movement: 10.2% (-6.7)
    Reform Party: 10.2% (+3.5)
    Socialist Party: 7.3% (+7.3)
    People's Party: 7.0% (+0.1)
    Centre Party: 6.2% (-4.7)

    The governing parties (Independence, Left-Green and Progressive) are are down 8.2% from 2019 so will we see a new coalition come to Government?

    The more recent fieldwork (22nd and 23rd September) comes from MMR with a sample of just 909.

    Independence Party: 21.8% (-3.4)
    Progressive Party: 14.3% (+3.6)
    Social Democrats: 13.9% (+1.8)
    Left-Green Movement: 11.0% (-5.9)
    Pirates: 10.7% (+1.5)
    Reform Party: 10.1% (+3.4)
    People's Party: 7.3% (+0.4)
    Socialist Party: 7.0% (+7.0)
    Centre Party: 4.7% (-6.2)

    With MMR, the governing coalition is down 6.7 points.

    As we all know, Iceland has six multi-member constituencies returning nine members each using the D'Hondt method with a further 9 "levelling" seats. There is a 5% threshold so Centre would be out based on MMR but safe based on Gallup.

    So who do the Independence Party want independence from?
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,708
    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
    Twaddle.
    You sometimes have some good insights and persuasive arguments. This is not one of them.

    To continue, you would have to argue that the fact of renting as opposed to owning somehow affects someone else's costs (or benefits) in their economic activity.

  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,399

    When you get so progressive you accidentally become regressive

    https://twitter.com/Liv_Boeree/status/1440956684512501762?s=19

    (they deleted the words “woman” and “she” out of Ginsburg’s quote *about women’s rights* because they’re apparently too offensive)

    https://twitter.com/Liv_Boeree/status/1440957060330496000?s=19

    For those that don't know Liv Boeree is astrophysic PhD and former professional poker player and lets just say definitely not a GB News viewer type....

    https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1440964281089019904
    The following songs have been approved by the
    @ACLU
    . 🎶

    “No [Person] No Cry” - Bob Marley

    “I’m Every [Person]” - Chaka Khan

    “Isn’t [They] Lovely” - Stevie Wonder

    “Does Your [Birthing Person] Know” - ABBA

    “Bring Your [Offspring With A Cervix] To The Slaughter” - Iron Maiden
    Anything by Personfred Person.
  • Rising taxes
    Rising interest rates
    Rising prices
    Food, energy and petrol shortages.

    Could be a fun old winter, eh?
  • geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
    Twaddle.
    You sometimes have some good insights and persuasive arguments. This is not one of them.

    Which part is wrong?

    Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?

    If letting out the property isn't an activity then what is the rent covering?
  • geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
    Twaddle.
    You sometimes have some good insights and persuasive arguments. This is not one of them.

    To continue, you would have to argue that the fact of renting as opposed to owning somehow affects someone else's costs (or benefits) in their economic activity.

    The fact of owning homes you don't occupy does affect someone else's costs or benefits in their economic activity yes. I already argued that.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
    Because houses cost nothing in Darlington. You can buy a house there for £30,000. Go in to the rural hinterlands of County Durham, and houses are being given away for next to nothing to first time buyers, if they do the place up.

    Landlords coming in, buying the properties, doing them up and renting them out to people who have issues in their lives that mean that home ownership isn't right for them can only be regarded as a social good. They take the burden away from the state and generate economic activity.

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631

    glw said:

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    I get the intent, but if the regulations stop the adoption of something better that would be immensely stupid.
    Its a solution looking for a problem.

    Twenty years ago when every phone had a different charger that was stupid. But consumers said it was stupid and the industry sorted it out.

    Now there's two modern standards (USB-C and lightning) and a third older standard (Micro USB) which just shows how standards need to change and why sticking to only one is stupid. If this had happened years ago would we have all still had to stick with Micro USB?

    Why can't consumers choose from the choice of just two modern standards? Its not like there's thirty different ones anymore.
    If we were still in the EU, then maybe we could have stopped the initiative.

    I don't expect that there will be a different phone model for the UK.
  • darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
    Because houses cost nothing in Darlington. You can buy a house there for £30,000. Go in to the rural hinterlands of County Durham, and houses are being given away for next to nothing to first time buyers, if they do the place up.

    Landlords coming in, buying the properties, doing them up and renting them out to people who have issues in their lives that mean that home ownership isn't right for them can only be regarded as a social good. They take the burden away from the state and generate economic activity.

    So what you are saying is that, in exchange for no more council tax, these landlords should not face a £150 per annum charge.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    isam said:

    Survation

    NEW – Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON 40% (-)
    LAB 35% (-1)
    LD 8% (-1)
    GRN 4% (-1)
    SNP 4% (-)
    OTH 8% (+3)

    NEW – Favourability Ratings:

    Boris Johnson / Keir Starmer

    Net Rating: -5% (+1) / -12% (-3)

    Conservative / Labour

    Net Rating: -10% (-3) / -7% (-3)

    NEW – Best Prime Minister:

    Boris Johnson 43% (-)
    Keir Starmer 30% (-2)
    Don't know 27% (+2)

    As far as mid-terms go this is 1999, rather than 1995 or 2009.
  • Must not bet on the ryder cup.....must not bet on the ryder cup....must not bet on the ryder cup....
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,179

    glw said:

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    I get the intent, but if the regulations stop the adoption of something better that would be immensely stupid.
    Its a solution looking for a problem.

    Twenty years ago when every phone had a different charger that was stupid. But consumers said it was stupid and the industry sorted it out.

    Now there's two modern standards (USB-C and lightning) and a third older standard (Micro USB) which just shows how standards need to change and why sticking to only one is stupid. If this had happened years ago would we have all still had to stick with Micro USB?

    Why can't consumers choose from the choice of just two modern standards? Its not like there's thirty different ones anymore.
    Well on a a personal level its annoying when I head to my parents house and Ive forgot my charger and they have only Apple !
    Maybe the EU are thinking of me ;)
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,708
    edited September 2021

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
    Twaddle.
    You sometimes have some good insights and persuasive arguments. This is not one of them.

    Which part is wrong?

    Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?

    If letting out the property isn't an activity then what is the rent covering?
    "Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?".
    - Yes I do deny that. All economic activity is either consumption or production. In this case the economic activity is the consumption of housing by living in it, not the manner in which it is paid for.

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631

    Rising taxes
    Rising interest rates
    Rising prices
    Food, energy and petrol shortages.

    Could be a fun old winter, eh?

    Rising hospital waiting lists too.

    Just as well I still have last years Christmas Dinner in the freezer. At least until the power cuts hit.
  • darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    If landlords sell up because Council Tax has been replaced with a £150 per annum tax (on your numbers) then who would they have sold their homes to?

    Or do you expect the homes to be demolished?

    Council houses were sold off via right to buy so people could own their own home, not so that people could buy other people's homes.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,906

    glw said:

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    I get the intent, but if the regulations stop the adoption of something better that would be immensely stupid.
    Its a solution looking for a problem.

    Twenty years ago when every phone had a different charger that was stupid. But consumers said it was stupid and the industry sorted it out.

    Now there's two modern standards (USB-C and lightning) and a third older standard (Micro USB) which just shows how standards need to change and why sticking to only one is stupid. If this had happened years ago would we have all still had to stick with Micro USB?

    Why can't consumers choose from the choice of just two modern standards? Its not like there's thirty different ones anymore.
    The EU did try to mandate Micro-B USB connectors back when phones were using all sorts of connectors. In 2021 we are down to three connectors in common use, and chargers are interchangable with simple adapters, you don't need special chargers really, everything is USB in terms of voltage and current, and devices are smart enough to do the best that the charger and device have in common.

    I use a generic three port charger most of the time, with a bunch of different cables for different devices. I've not needed a new charger in years, and don't even bother with the ones that come with devices I've bought recently. There really isn't much of a charger problem left.

    Mandating a single physical connector is only okay if the EU is going to make it easy for a manufacturer to go "this is better, so we don't need to use USB Type-C". It would be bloody stupid if the only way round the rules would be to have two ports until the EU gets around to allowing the new port alone.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    What do you expect, when governments pick winners?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    Foxy said:

    glw said:

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    I get the intent, but if the regulations stop the adoption of something better that would be immensely stupid.
    Its a solution looking for a problem.

    Twenty years ago when every phone had a different charger that was stupid. But consumers said it was stupid and the industry sorted it out.

    Now there's two modern standards (USB-C and lightning) and a third older standard (Micro USB) which just shows how standards need to change and why sticking to only one is stupid. If this had happened years ago would we have all still had to stick with Micro USB?

    Why can't consumers choose from the choice of just two modern standards? Its not like there's thirty different ones anymore.
    If we were still in the EU, then maybe we could have stopped the initiative.

    I don't expect that there will be a different phone model for the UK.
    I do. The UK model will be the same as the Middle East model - with the three-pin charger and the Lightning connector.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    And it provides appropriate housing for transient people, like Fox jr2.

    It really doesn't make sense to buy a place if you are going to be in it for less than three years or so.
    There isn't much point in trying to enlighten people on here about this. Landlords have been conveniently identified as the whipping boy for all the ills of capitalism, an economic system that most people on here nonetheless seem to be winners in, when everything is considered in the round.

    It is really quite infantile logic that leads people to this position, the understanding of how the private rented sector works is poor; the limitations of the state as a provider of housing have been overlooked; and the appropriateness of home ownership as a way of solving housing problems has been massively overestimated. Problems that largely apply in London and certain parts of the south east have been extrapolated to apply to the entire country.
  • geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
    Twaddle.
    You sometimes have some good insights and persuasive arguments. This is not one of them.

    Which part is wrong?

    Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?

    If letting out the property isn't an activity then what is the rent covering?
    "Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?".
    - Yes I do deny that. All economic activity is either consumption or production. In this case the economic activity is the consumption of housing by living in it, not the manner in which it is paid for.

    And an owner not occupying the house is producing a home to be let out out to a tenant to consume that.

    You're trying to act as if owner-occupied and tenant-occupied are the same thing but its not and there is all sort of evidence to say it is not, which is why lower-rates of owner-occupation leads to higher rates of crime etc
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,988
    INDEPENDENT DIGITAL: Petrol stations close amid delivery driver shortage #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1441142141699325957/photo/1
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    edited September 2021
    dixiedean said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
    When the tenant leaves it reverts back to the owner, they then declare it empty so they don't have to pay. This gives them a 6 month countdown.
    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.
    So you want those who can't buy a home, but have to rent, to pay a load more rent? A bit odd, surely?
    The owner would pay the surcharge not the tenant. If the owner doesn't want to do so, they can always put the property on the market allowing the tenants to buy it.
    I think the suggestion is they would put up rents to cover it, so all it would do is shift the payment by the tenant from council tax to rent.
    In part, depending on rental price elasticity.

    House prices would also fall, or at least growth would be tempered, due to the new recurring liability.

    Prices aren’t terribly elastic in most of the country, at least, as far as I can judge. The killer is the shortage of good alternatives.
    I think they are, actually.
    Was very interesting to see Covid impact on rents locally.
    I think I’m right in saying you’re in London? I wouldn’t extrapolate nationwide from there.

    From a personal point of view it’s striking to note how sticky rents are in South Staffs (where I live) Gloucs (where I let a house) much of the north of England (where my cousin lets several properties) and South and West Wales where many of my friends live.
    Been looking with my eldest for a property to rent as they have finished Uni.
    6 month's up front rent. And that bar gets you on a shortlist for an interview with the landlord.
    Where the hell is that?

    Sounds like old memories of the Middle East, where rents were quoted as per year because the landlord expected to get one cheque from your employer.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,708

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
    Twaddle.
    You sometimes have some good insights and persuasive arguments. This is not one of them.

    Which part is wrong?

    Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?

    If letting out the property isn't an activity then what is the rent covering?
    "Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?".
    - Yes I do deny that. All economic activity is either consumption or production. In this case the economic activity is the consumption of housing by living in it, not the manner in which it is paid for.

    And an owner not occupying the house is producing a home to be let out out to a tenant to consume that.

    You're trying to act as if owner-occupied and tenant-occupied are the same thing but its not and there is all sort of evidence to say it is not, which is why lower-rates of owner-occupation leads to higher rates of crime etc
    The question is whether "externality" is the appropriate concept here. I assert that it is not because whether the occupier of the property owns it or rents it has no bearing on the consumption or production activity of anyone else. So whatever costs or benefits there are remain with the person occupying the property and that is the full extent of social costs or benefits.

  • glwglw Posts: 9,906
    Sandpit said:

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    What do you expect, when governments pick winners?
    USB Type-C isn't really all that good anyway. The plug looks the same but the port can be any one of the various USB 2, 3, 4 and Thunderbolt varieties. There are so many optional features now that you can run into all kinds of stupid issues with compatibility between devices and even the cables themselves. Just today I got another USB 3.1 Gen 2 cable with USB-IF certification delivered, so that I know that I have another cable that will definitely do high-speed I/O and 5v 3A charging with no magic required.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,179
    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    Housing = Empty + OO + Private Landlord + Council Landlord + HA Landlord + Holiday homes + Other housing.
    Its a zero + New development sum.
    Landlord benefit is the absolute fucking worst benefit ever too.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    If landlords sell up because Council Tax has been replaced with a £150 per annum tax (on your numbers) then who would they have sold their homes to?

    Or do you expect the homes to be demolished?

    Council houses were sold off via right to buy so people could own their own home, not so that people could buy other people's homes.
    I don't know who came up with 'abolish council tax' idea, but it is a total non starter. Such taxes are merely paying for services provided by the Council. If they aren't funded by Council tax, they need to be funded some other way. How?

    None of this changes the problem that you need a private rented sector; rents are increasing because landlords are quitting the private rented sector, amongst other things. Supply and demand etc.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,549

    glw said:

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    I get the intent, but if the regulations stop the adoption of something better that would be immensely stupid.
    Its a solution looking for a problem.

    Twenty years ago when every phone had a different charger that was stupid. But consumers said it was stupid and the industry sorted it out.

    Now there's two modern standards (USB-C and lightning) and a third older standard (Micro USB) which just shows how standards need to change and why sticking to only one is stupid. If this had happened years ago would we have all still had to stick with Micro USB?

    Why can't consumers choose from the choice of just two modern standards? Its not like there's thirty different ones anymore.
    How long before they invent a wireless method of charging devices?
  • geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
    Twaddle.
    You sometimes have some good insights and persuasive arguments. This is not one of them.

    Which part is wrong?

    Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?

    If letting out the property isn't an activity then what is the rent covering?
    "Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?".
    - Yes I do deny that. All economic activity is either consumption or production. In this case the economic activity is the consumption of housing by living in it, not the manner in which it is paid for.

    And an owner not occupying the house is producing a home to be let out out to a tenant to consume that.

    You're trying to act as if owner-occupied and tenant-occupied are the same thing but its not and there is all sort of evidence to say it is not, which is why lower-rates of owner-occupation leads to higher rates of crime etc
    The question is whether "externality" is the appropriate concept here. I assert that it is not because whether the occupier of the property owns it or rents it has no bearing on the consumption or production activity of anyone else. So whatever costs or benefits there are remain with the person occupying the property and that is the full extent of social costs or benefits.

    Whether the occupier of the property owns it or rents it does have a bearing on the consumption or production activity of others. Not least the person they let it to.

    If I own a home and live in it then that is my activity and mine alone. If I own a home and let it to you then that clearly affects both me and you.
  • Andy_JS said:

    glw said:

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    I get the intent, but if the regulations stop the adoption of something better that would be immensely stupid.
    Its a solution looking for a problem.

    Twenty years ago when every phone had a different charger that was stupid. But consumers said it was stupid and the industry sorted it out.

    Now there's two modern standards (USB-C and lightning) and a third older standard (Micro USB) which just shows how standards need to change and why sticking to only one is stupid. If this had happened years ago would we have all still had to stick with Micro USB?

    Why can't consumers choose from the choice of just two modern standards? Its not like there's thirty different ones anymore.
    How long before they invent a wireless method of charging devices?
    You really are a Luddite.

    Wireless charging already exists.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    edited September 2021
    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    If landlords sell up because Council Tax has been replaced with a £150 per annum tax (on your numbers) then who would they have sold their homes to?

    Or do you expect the homes to be demolished?

    Council houses were sold off via right to buy so people could own their own home, not so that people could buy other people's homes.
    I don't know who came up with 'abolish council tax' idea, but it is a total non starter. Such taxes are merely paying for services provided by the Council. If they aren't funded by Council tax, they need to be funded some other way. How?

    None of this changes the problem that you need a private rented sector; rents are increasing because landlords are quitting the private rented sector, amongst other things. Supply and demand etc.
    Council tax should be scrapped because its regressive, expensive and inefficient to collect, and based on valuations from the dark ages.

    Property tax should pay for council services.
  • darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    If landlords sell up because Council Tax has been replaced with a £150 per annum tax (on your numbers) then who would they have sold their homes to?

    Or do you expect the homes to be demolished?

    Council houses were sold off via right to buy so people could own their own home, not so that people could buy other people's homes.
    I don't know who came up with 'abolish council tax' idea, but it is a total non starter. Such taxes are merely paying for services provided by the Council. If they aren't funded by Council tax, they need to be funded some other way. How?

    None of this changes the problem that you need a private rented sector; rents are increasing because landlords are quitting the private rented sector, amongst other things. Supply and demand etc.
    Did you read what you were responding to initially? The proposal was to replace Council Tax with a property tax (it could be called Rates). So yes, the Rates would replace the Council Tax.

    If landlords are quitting the sector then who are they selling to?
  • RIP "Zero COVID"

    New Zealand’s strategy to eliminate the coronavirus may have been defeated by the Delta strain, the country’s health chief has conceded.

    With the country’s largest city, Auckland, in lockdown since mid-August, the health director-general Dr Ashley Bloomfield has warned that the nation may not return to zero Covid-19 cases. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, has previously committed to elimination of the virus despite the view of her Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, that this goal was “absurd”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/db962da6-1c5f-11ec-95b9-6429167b0259?shareToken=2230b88deb449e257dfe8f57a2c674c9
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366
    edited September 2021
    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
    Because houses cost nothing in Darlington. You can buy a house there for £30,000. Go in to the rural hinterlands of County Durham, and houses are being given away for next to nothing to first time buyers, if they do the place up.

    Landlords coming in, buying the properties, doing them up and renting them out to people who have issues in their lives that mean that home ownership isn't right for them can only be regarded as a social good. They take the burden away from the state and generate economic activity.

    Love to know where in Darlington you wou;d buy a house for £30k. £60k will get you a 2 up, 2 down Terrance in the Denes, prices little different since 2004

    Equally I wouldn’t want that sort of hassle for £400 or so a month, there are far too many things that could go wrong


  • Foxy said:

    Rising taxes
    Rising interest rates
    Rising prices
    Food, energy and petrol shortages.

    Could be a fun old winter, eh?

    Rising hospital waiting lists too.

    Just as well I still have last years Christmas Dinner in the freezer. At least until the power cuts hit.
    ITV Wales was so depressing over Wales NHS which has the longest A & E waiting times and waiting lists ever, and the second worst ambulance response times
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,815
    edited September 2021
    Off topic, SSN just went proudly live to show the Ryder Cup opening ceremony. It was so bad that after 2 mins they chose to cut back to showing replays of earlier generic sports news that they have been showing all day instead. Never seen that happen before.....
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,708

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:



    That seems complicated. How's this as a solution:

    The owner of all properties become liable for their Council Tax. Everyone is permitted to name a single home as their own primary residence which is taxed normally, every other home they own (and all homes for companies that own properties) has the Council Tax doubled.

    People and companies owning other people's home is a negative externality, it should be taxed accordingly.

    Umm, I think you need to revise the meaning of externality.

    An externality is a cost or benefit caused by a producer that is not financially occurred or received by that producer.

    In the case of owning other people's homes, there are multiple externalities that result from that. It prevents the occupier from buying it (as they could if it was on the market or eg with Right To Buy if it was owned by the Council) and as a result it has the effect of increasing crime rates and all the other issues that are associated with lower home ownership. Those are all externalities, just like pollution.

    It'd be less of an issue if we had complete freedom to build other homes instead - but that has its own externalities too or so others here like to say.
    It is the difference between private cost and social cost. It arises because third parties are affected by some production or consumption activity. All costs are opportunity costs. Ownership is not a cost-bearing or cost-inducing activity. An externality arises as a result of an action, not a state of being like ownership.
    You are trying to twist the meaning of a well understood (by economists) concept to support an argument which does not bear this reinterpretation. You can make your argument without resort to this dissimulation.

    If there's no ongoing activity then I'm assuming there's no ongoing rent being charged? Because rent is to cover the activity of letting out the property is it not? So yes every time rent is charged that activity is happening.

    Every time the landlord of a property charges rent on the person who lives in the property, without the person living there being able to buy the property they live in that activity is happening.
    Twaddle.
    You sometimes have some good insights and persuasive arguments. This is not one of them.

    Which part is wrong?

    Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?

    If letting out the property isn't an activity then what is the rent covering?
    "Do you deny that that act of letting out a property is an ongoing activity that is a paid for transaction via rent each month?".
    - Yes I do deny that. All economic activity is either consumption or production. In this case the economic activity is the consumption of housing by living in it, not the manner in which it is paid for.

    And an owner not occupying the house is producing a home to be let out out to a tenant to consume that.

    You're trying to act as if owner-occupied and tenant-occupied are the same thing but its not and there is all sort of evidence to say it is not, which is why lower-rates of owner-occupation leads to higher rates of crime etc
    The question is whether "externality" is the appropriate concept here. I assert that it is not because whether the occupier of the property owns it or rents it has no bearing on the consumption or production activity of anyone else. So whatever costs or benefits there are remain with the person occupying the property and that is the full extent of social costs or benefits.

    Whether the occupier of the property owns it or rents it does have a bearing on the consumption or production activity of others. Not least the person they let it to.

    If I own a home and live in it then that is my activity and mine alone. If I own a home and let it to you then that clearly affects both me and you.
    Philip, let's leave it there. I haven't persuaded you of that your enlisting of the externality concept is in error, and you haven't persuaded me that it is correct. Dommage hien?

  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    If landlords sell up because Council Tax has been replaced with a £150 per annum tax (on your numbers) then who would they have sold their homes to?

    Or do you expect the homes to be demolished?

    Council houses were sold off via right to buy so people could own their own home, not so that people could buy other people's homes.
    I don't know who came up with 'abolish council tax' idea, but it is a total non starter. Such taxes are merely paying for services provided by the Council. If they aren't funded by Council tax, they need to be funded some other way. How?

    None of this changes the problem that you need a private rented sector; rents are increasing because landlords are quitting the private rented sector, amongst other things. Supply and demand etc.
    Did you read what you were responding to initially? The proposal was to replace Council Tax with a property tax (it could be called Rates). So yes, the Rates would replace the Council Tax.

    If landlords are quitting the sector then who are they selling to?
    In the area I am familiar with, it is landlords selling their properties to developers, who do them up and then sell them to people coming down from London to live here; thus displacing the poor people who were here before, who then present themselves at the Council homeless. No changes to any system of taxation is going to solve this problem.
  • Farooq said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    If landlords sell up because Council Tax has been replaced with a £150 per annum tax (on your numbers) then who would they have sold their homes to?

    Or do you expect the homes to be demolished?

    Council houses were sold off via right to buy so people could own their own home, not so that people could buy other people's homes.
    I don't know who came up with 'abolish council tax' idea, but it is a total non starter. Such taxes are merely paying for services provided by the Council. If they aren't funded by Council tax, they need to be funded some other way. How?

    None of this changes the problem that you need a private rented sector; rents are increasing because landlords are quitting the private rented sector, amongst other things. Supply and demand etc.
    Quitting the private rented sector and doing what with the property?
    We have done this before, the houses spontaneously combust when landlords sell.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366
    Farooq said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    If landlords sell up because Council Tax has been replaced with a £150 per annum tax (on your numbers) then who would they have sold their homes to?

    Or do you expect the homes to be demolished?

    Council houses were sold off via right to buy so people could own their own home, not so that people could buy other people's homes.
    I don't know who came up with 'abolish council tax' idea, but it is a total non starter. Such taxes are merely paying for services provided by the Council. If they aren't funded by Council tax, they need to be funded some other way. How?

    None of this changes the problem that you need a private rented sector; rents are increasing because landlords are quitting the private rented sector, amongst other things. Supply and demand etc.
    Quitting the private rented sector and doing what with the property?
    When a landlord sells the house turns to dust - I thought everyone knew that
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129

    glw said:

    And what happens when USB-C isn't king anymore? Imagine this legislation a few years ago, we'd all be required to have Micro USB ports on everything today. Any stipulations for this to sunset/be revised? Or will people be fighting to finally overturn this in 5 yrs?

    https://twitter.com/Sentdex/status/1441134238137344017?s=19

    I get the intent, but if the regulations stop the adoption of something better that would be immensely stupid.
    Its a solution looking for a problem.

    Twenty years ago when every phone had a different charger that was stupid. But consumers said it was stupid and the industry sorted it out.

    Now there's two modern standards (USB-C and lightning) and a third older standard (Micro USB) which just shows how standards need to change and why sticking to only one is stupid. If this had happened years ago would we have all still had to stick with Micro USB?

    Why can't consumers choose from the choice of just two modern standards? Its not like there's thirty different ones anymore.
    A sensible compromise would be to require all electronics to have an ANSI recognised connector - which might have the beneficial side effect of Apple seeking to get Lightning recognised (and therefore having sensible licensing terms).
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    If landlords sell up because Council Tax has been replaced with a £150 per annum tax (on your numbers) then who would they have sold their homes to?

    Or do you expect the homes to be demolished?

    Council houses were sold off via right to buy so people could own their own home, not so that people could buy other people's homes.
    I don't know who came up with 'abolish council tax' idea, but it is a total non starter. Such taxes are merely paying for services provided by the Council. If they aren't funded by Council tax, they need to be funded some other way. How?

    None of this changes the problem that you need a private rented sector; rents are increasing because landlords are quitting the private rented sector, amongst other things. Supply and demand etc.
    Did you read what you were responding to initially? The proposal was to replace Council Tax with a property tax (it could be called Rates). So yes, the Rates would replace the Council Tax.

    If landlords are quitting the sector then who are they selling to?
    In the area I am familiar with, it is landlords selling their properties to developers, who do them up and then sell them to people coming down from London to live here; thus displacing the poor people who were here before, who then present themselves at the Council homeless. No changes to any system of taxation is going to solve this problem.
    The problem is planning - let people build houses, and the artificial scarcity goes away.
  • RIP "Zero COVID"

    New Zealand’s strategy to eliminate the coronavirus may have been defeated by the Delta strain, the country’s health chief has conceded.

    With the country’s largest city, Auckland, in lockdown since mid-August, the health director-general Dr Ashley Bloomfield has warned that the nation may not return to zero Covid-19 cases. Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, has previously committed to elimination of the virus despite the view of her Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, that this goal was “absurd”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/db962da6-1c5f-11ec-95b9-6429167b0259?shareToken=2230b88deb449e257dfe8f57a2c674c9

    I’m not a fan of Jacinda.

    But what you won’t read in the Times is that the covid elimination strategy is publicly acknowledged as contingent on low vaccination rates.

    The debate is what the right level of vaccination is to allow re-opening; Jacinda had previously suggested early next year but that was before the current outbreak.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,549
    Peston: food inflation of 5% expected.
  • Another headache for Rishi, as September's inflation rate is used for pension increases so if it is 4% that is the rate or increase in April 22
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    eek said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
    Because houses cost nothing in Darlington. You can buy a house there for £30,000. Go in to the rural hinterlands of County Durham, and houses are being given away for next to nothing to first time buyers, if they do the place up.

    Landlords coming in, buying the properties, doing them up and renting them out to people who have issues in their lives that mean that home ownership isn't right for them can only be regarded as a social good. They take the burden away from the state and generate economic activity.

    Love to know where in Darlington you wou;d buy a house for £30k. £60k will get you a 2 up, 2 down Terrance in the Denes, prices little different since 2004

    Equally I wouldn’t want that sort of hassle for £400 or so a month, there are far too many things that could go wrong
    You can get £400 a month on a £60k house? That’s more than 8% return.

    Do I need to assume that the £60k house is like buying a 15 year old car, as I just did, and not expecting the occasional shocking repair bill?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,179
    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you jeopordise those two issues summarised above.

    Can you go through point 1 slowly for me ?
    I've been round this before on here. So people present themselves as homeless. The Council have a duty to house them. There is no Council Housing. So the Council need private landlords. If there are no landlords, then there is nowhere to house these people.
    If landlords sell up because Council Tax has been replaced with a £150 per annum tax (on your numbers) then who would they have sold their homes to?

    Or do you expect the homes to be demolished?

    Council houses were sold off via right to buy so people could own their own home, not so that people could buy other people's homes.
    I don't know who came up with 'abolish council tax' idea, but it is a total non starter. Such taxes are merely paying for services provided by the Council. If they aren't funded by Council tax, they need to be funded some other way. How?

    None of this changes the problem that you need a private rented sector; rents are increasing because landlords are quitting the private rented sector, amongst other things. Supply and demand etc.
    Did you read what you were responding to initially? The proposal was to replace Council Tax with a property tax (it could be called Rates). So yes, the Rates would replace the Council Tax.

    If landlords are quitting the sector then who are they selling to?
    In the area I am familiar with, it is landlords selling their properties to developers, who do them up and then sell them to people coming down from London to live here; thus displacing the poor people who were here before, who then present themselves at the Council homeless. No changes to any system of taxation is going to solve this problem.
    Housing in London is thusly freed up...
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    eek said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
    Because houses cost nothing in Darlington. You can buy a house there for £30,000. Go in to the rural hinterlands of County Durham, and houses are being given away for next to nothing to first time buyers, if they do the place up.

    Landlords coming in, buying the properties, doing them up and renting them out to people who have issues in their lives that mean that home ownership isn't right for them can only be regarded as a social good. They take the burden away from the state and generate economic activity.

    Love to know where in Darlington you wou;d buy a house for £30k. £60k will get you a 2 up, 2 down Terrance in the Denes, prices little different since 2004

    Equally I wouldn’t want that sort of hassle for £400 or so a month, there are far too many things that could go wrong


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113532656#/?channel=RES_BUY

    Doesn't take too long to do a search on rightmove, but there you go.

    You are absolutely correct. Why go in to such hassle for £400 a month. There is too much regulation and responsibility, which is another reason that landlords are quitting the sector.
  • darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
    Because houses cost nothing in Darlington. You can buy a house there for £30,000. Go in to the rural hinterlands of County Durham, and houses are being given away for next to nothing to first time buyers, if they do the place up.

    Landlords coming in, buying the properties, doing them up and renting them out to people who have issues in their lives that mean that home ownership isn't right for them can only be regarded as a social good. They take the burden away from the state and generate economic activity.

    Love to know where in Darlington you wou;d buy a house for £30k. £60k will get you a 2 up, 2 down Terrance in the Denes, prices little different since 2004

    Equally I wouldn’t want that sort of hassle for £400 or so a month, there are far too many things that could go wrong


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113532656#/?channel=RES_BUY

    Doesn't take too long to do a search on rightmove, but there you go.

    You are absolutely correct. Why go in to such hassle for £400 a month. There is too much regulation and responsibility, which is another reason that landlords are quitting the sector.
    You can get £4800 a year for a £35k investment?
  • Quick work if they've got the right chap:

    A 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Sabina Nessa in south-east London, the Metropolitan Police said.

    Ms Nessa's body was found by a member of the public in Cator Park in Kidbrooke.

    Officers believe the 28-year-old teacher was attacked shortly after leaving her home in Astell Road at about 20:30 BST on Friday.

    The force has also released a CCTV image of a man they are searching for.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-58671588
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,393

    Quick work if they've got the right chap:

    A 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Sabina Nessa in south-east London, the Metropolitan Police said.

    Ms Nessa's body was found by a member of the public in Cator Park in Kidbrooke.

    Officers believe the 28-year-old teacher was attacked shortly after leaving her home in Astell Road at about 20:30 BST on Friday.

    The force has also released a CCTV image of a man they are searching for.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-58671588

    Not that quick. It’s been a week.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,582
    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
    Because houses cost nothing in Darlington. You can buy a house there for £30,000. Go in to the rural hinterlands of County Durham, and houses are being given away for next to nothing to first time buyers, if they do the place up.

    Landlords coming in, buying the properties, doing them up and renting them out to people who have issues in their lives that mean that home ownership isn't right for them can only be regarded as a social good. They take the burden away from the state and generate economic activity.

    Love to know where in Darlington you wou;d buy a house for £30k. £60k will get you a 2 up, 2 down Terrance in the Denes, prices little different since 2004

    Equally I wouldn’t want that sort of hassle for £400 or so a month, there are far too many things that could go wrong


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113532656#/?channel=RES_BUY

    Doesn't take too long to do a search on rightmove, but there you go.

    You are absolutely correct. Why go in to such hassle for £400 a month. There is too much regulation and responsibility, which is another reason that landlords are quitting the sector.
    An advert with one photo, of the outside front of the property. One can obviously assume, that ‘requires modernisation’ means it’s completely gutted and unlivable inside, until you spend £20k more than the £35k asking price?
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042

    Quick work if they've got the right chap:

    A 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Sabina Nessa in south-east London, the Metropolitan Police said.

    Ms Nessa's body was found by a member of the public in Cator Park in Kidbrooke.

    Officers believe the 28-year-old teacher was attacked shortly after leaving her home in Astell Road at about 20:30 BST on Friday.

    The force has also released a CCTV image of a man they are searching for.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-58671588

    Not that quick. It’s been a week.
    The important thing of course is whether they have the right man and the evidence if so. I hope so, and if they do I don't think a week is bad going. If not, then the timing is immaterial.
  • Huge queues at petrol pumps tomorrow then.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
    Because houses cost nothing in Darlington. You can buy a house there for £30,000. Go in to the rural hinterlands of County Durham, and houses are being given away for next to nothing to first time buyers, if they do the place up.

    Landlords coming in, buying the properties, doing them up and renting them out to people who have issues in their lives that mean that home ownership isn't right for them can only be regarded as a social good. They take the burden away from the state and generate economic activity.

    Love to know where in Darlington you wou;d buy a house for £30k. £60k will get you a 2 up, 2 down Terrance in the Denes, prices little different since 2004

    Equally I wouldn’t want that sort of hassle for £400 or so a month, there are far too many things that could go wrong


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113532656#/?channel=RES_BUY

    Doesn't take too long to do a search on rightmove, but there you go.

    You are absolutely correct. Why go in to such hassle for £400 a month. There is too much regulation and responsibility, which is another reason that landlords are quitting the sector.
    An advert with one photo, of the outside front of the property. One can obviously assume, that ‘requires modernisation’ means it’s completely gutted and unlivable inside, until you spend £20k more than the £35k asking price?
    No ch, no double glazing, bottom energy rating, and so on.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    I worked for many years in Councils, and the reality on the ground is that you need a private rented sector for two reasons:

    1) housing of vulnerable people as the state do not do it, most of the time, for good reasons.
    2) Inward investment, people doing up properties promotes economic activity in the area.

    If you kill the private rented sector through punitive wealth taxes, then you run in to those two problems summarised above.

    Switzerland has a wealth tax.
    So does New York (ie a property tax)

    Do they have a rental sector?
    Oh, they do.
    You cannot compare Darlington with Zurich or New York.
    Why not?
    Because houses cost nothing in Darlington. You can buy a house there for £30,000. Go in to the rural hinterlands of County Durham, and houses are being given away for next to nothing to first time buyers, if they do the place up.

    Landlords coming in, buying the properties, doing them up and renting them out to people who have issues in their lives that mean that home ownership isn't right for them can only be regarded as a social good. They take the burden away from the state and generate economic activity.

    Love to know where in Darlington you wou;d buy a house for £30k. £60k will get you a 2 up, 2 down Terrance in the Denes, prices little different since 2004

    Equally I wouldn’t want that sort of hassle for £400 or so a month, there are far too many things that could go wrong


    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113532656#/?channel=RES_BUY

    Doesn't take too long to do a search on rightmove, but there you go.

    You are absolutely correct. Why go in to such hassle for £400 a month. There is too much regulation and responsibility, which is another reason that landlords are quitting the sector.
    You can get £4800 a year for a £35k investment?
    Nope as Sandpit says it requires £20-25k of work.

    Plus it’s not so much an issue in Darlington but in the surrounding villages, it’s often the case that rent won’t be paid after x months, and when you finally evict them it’s another refurb job
This discussion has been closed.