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The Queen and tens of thousands of Londoners would be hit by a planned Liberal Democrat tax on homes worth more than £1million.
Party leader Nick Clegg unveiled the flagship policy but it sparked a barrage of questions over how it would work. The "mansion tax" would be charged to council taxpayers at 0.5 per cent of a property's value over £1million.
Overall, the Lib-Dems want to raise billions for a rise in the starting rate of tax to £10,000, taking four million people out of tax altogether. But the Tories warned it would hit London and the South-East disproportionately hard as there were more million-pound homes.
A spokesman for Buckingham Palace, which was valued recently at £935million, confirmed the Queen paid council tax on a voluntary basis, meaning she could be billed nearly £4.7million under the levy.
Imposing the tax could mean revaluation of properties across Britain. There was also confusion over whether the tax would be permanent, as it would not be introduced with the other flagship policy of local income tax. If this was introduced, the property tax would be scrapped, but some senior Lib-Dems are intent on ditching local income tax.
Mr Clegg insisted the tax would be "fair". He said: "This is not a big sacrifice. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask of people who have got properties of that value, and it's completely in line with how pretty well every tax system in the world works."
Those eligible for council tax relief would not pay the full amount if they lived in a property worth more than £1million. But senior Lib-Dems admitted that a small number of people, likely to include elderly individuals on modest incomes, could face having to pay thousands of pounds.
Lib-Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable's team estimates that 250,000 people live in £1million homes. He is proposing to raise £1.1billion from the levy, an average of £4,000 per person, but admitted it could hit the "relatively wealthy", not just the rich.
In his speech to the party conference, Mr Cable said: "Under our unfair council tax Messrs Mittal and Abramovich in their £30million palaces pay the same as a band H home though their properties may be worth 40 or 50 times as much. That small levy alone would lift 300,000 low-paid workers and pensioners out of tax."
His team stressed it would apply to just one per cent of homes. But the "mansion" tax, on top of other plans to rake in money from the wealthy, could scupper the hopes of Lib-Dem MPs in the capital of being re-elected.
Condemning the property tax, shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said: "There is already a high cost of living in the capital and the Lib-Dems seem determined to make things worse."
Richmond Park Lib-Dem MP Susan Kramer is fighting to stop her seat being won by Tory millionaire ecologist Zac Goldsmith. Similarly, Lib-Dem MPs Tom Brake, in Carshalton and Wallington, and Paul Burstow, in Sutton and Cheam, could see their campaigns hit by the tax.
Tony Travers, director of the LSE's Greater London Group, said: "There will be lots of retired people living in homes worth more than £1 million, who are by no stretch of the imagination 'rich'."
Reader views (67)
Has not Nick Clegg heard of Inheritance Tax? Vince Cable has tied a cable in knots around him. The Government get "their pound of flesh" eventually when people are sent to an early grave by money worries and audacious new taxes. Might I suppose that these people bought their "Mansions" out of taxable income? (At 40%?)Did the Credit Crunch cause Vince to lose his memory and marbles? Any Pensioner will now run as fast as possible from this madness they have the audacity to call "thought through policy". When I retired my income and income tax went down but Council Tax keeps on rising. I pay the same as some of my neighbours who have 6/8 times my income. The Lib Dems previously proposed a Local Income Tax - what happened to that I wonder. I think they have just alienated many of their core voters.
If an MP has two houses which together are worth £1m+ will they pay the new proposed tax? Win a booby prize for the best answer!
- Roy, Billericay Essex
I built my own house in 1989, they put it in band G, I was paying £2300 per year and when I had to retire on a basic state pension I could not afford to live their so I sold it and bought a larger detatched house in Brittany with a 4 car detached garage overlooking a lake at half what I sold my UK for and my council tax is only £700, its warmer, and French Wines are cheaper here (suprise-suprise)
- Jim Allan, EX PAT
I wouldn't worry too much as there is more chance of the BNP being elected than the loony Lib-Dems.
- Vince, London, West London
nick clegg is along the right lines here.
make the rich pay their share. ignore all the bleats about disposable income ,they are irrelevant and diversionary tactics. if people can afford to live in £1 million + houses they can afford a bit more tax. of course they will always come up with some self serving, arrogant excuse, tax 'em some more
- Simon, kingston
I do not own a property but if they want to tax the rich why not just extend the current council tax bandings. Simple innit?
On the other hand time for the rest of us to leave.
- John O'Meara, London
Does it really matter what the LibDonkeys say,they are unelectable,have been all my many years and they know it.
As for Liebour they are toast next time round and Mandelson knows it,but the agenda here is handing over our country to the EUSSR.
- Roy.C, wigan.england.
Whilst I admire young Nick Cleg, as he was the only MP in the entire House of Commons
With the courage to ask for the Speaker to be removed, whilst all others kept silent, especially Gutless Gordon.
Young Nick Cleg, must realize that Government cannot just keep continuing to hype up Taxation as every move in that direction is destructive towards commerce.
There is no accountability to the Taxpayers by Government. They are robbing the taxpayers every dam day of the week and continuing to invent ‘New Laws’ to generate revenue streams and attack us all by ever increasing Tax, tax, and more tax.
We need constructive polices run on good forward planning and business management not Tax, tax, and more destructive taxation polices that are crippling businesses and investment. If the I.C.C.O System logged through Business Management Advisor Mr Peter Singlton with business link in Poole Dorset was to be rolled out as planned and designed by myself the economies of all participating countries would rise considerably.
Signed Carl Barron Chairman of agpcuk
- Carl Barron, Christchurch, Dorset
What an absurd idea! There is no acknowledgement here of the disposible income of a person. I live in a home at the borderline of £1m. But I have a huge mortgage (by choice) because my priority at this stage in my life is to have a spacious home from which I can work and entertain clients. It has been a stretch paying for it; a dream we've sacrificed a lot for. Paying for it is already a strain. I already pay £5,500 / annum on management charges plus the cost of heating and running a listed building. I'm not complaining about this at all - except to say that I have very little disposable income. I drive a 12 year old car. We holiday in the UK - and haven't at all for 3 years whilst paying for renovations. Why should a governmentr come along and make different choices for me? I could easily sell the house, buy a smaller one, and spend y hard earned money on foreign holidays and foreign-manufactured cars. How will that benefit the government? How will it benefit me? A government has no right to skew the choices that people make with their own money....unless perhaps to benefit the environment or job creation. This does neither.
- Brett Templeton, london
"You don't have to be tht wealthy to have a million pound house in London." Mark London.
Some people do lead a very sheltered life.
- Mick, London, England
Here we go gathering nuts in May, or, in this case, September. Go back to your constituencies, sit in a darkened room, prepare for power, and call in the men in white coats.....
- John, prestbury
My street in London has a mixed range of social housing, homes lived in by families and home-owners for the past 20 or 30 years and the newer arrivals - who are predominantly bankers and corporate lawyers.
This is a mixed area, with teachers earning 30 thousand, charity workers on £25,000 and then the super-rich earners who have generous bonuses. To tax all these home-owners in the same way is deeply undemocratic - it will only mean that the street will be lived in only by rich bankers - those of us on ordinary salaries, without millionaire life styles will be unable to afford the tax. This is an ordinary street of scruffy victorian terraced houses with 3 bedrooms, no fancy views, no parking, no gardens and just the accident of a postal code that appears to have become part of the property boom - driving up house prioces to approaching a million or over. I dont expect sympathy for living in an over-valued house but I do expect a fairer tax system than the Lib dems propose. I voted for them last time - and they have now lost my vote.
- Lily, London
Scotty, London
Scotty - don`t confuse the neccessity of wealth redistribution - the job of elected government - with desire for commmunism (under any shade) - it is a desire for perceived fairness and reasonableness and therefore minimises unrest amongst the taxpayers - those who subsidise it all.
Once again, intelligent debate leading to fiscal or other actions for society is all we have - that which we have fought for in the past - unless of course you abdicate dictatorship, if so, you should say so - it`s called freedom of expression, and ANYBODY can join in! - even the non-"expert" - and rightly so.
- Darius, London UK
much as i admire vince cable i am always astounded by the liberals attempts to alienate voters and make themselves unelectable.
such self destructive behaviour in an individual would require serious and prolonged therapy
- M.O'Brien, london.uk
Kath: Oxon. Yes verybody just LOVES Vince Cable because he's never going to be in power. So all his 'proposals' are simply soap bubbles blown to please the faithful, such as yourself. He can says what he pleases as he will never be obliged to implement a policy.
- Dectora, London UK
If the issue is that we are spending too much on public services then it can't be right to raise even more taxes. The economy needs real people spending not ever more state spending structures.
The LDs keep returning to the theme of attacking those they consider well off. Households with dual incomes totaling £100k are hardly the rich, they are probably paying for their kids education, a mortgage and are not living off the state. Whislt an easy bogeyman, in reality these people are contributing to society and not drawing that much.
A flat rate cut of say 5% on all government spending across all departments equally, an across the board tax rise for all those earning more than £20k of 2% and the removal of some universal benefits such as child benefit for the middle classes are much fairer and probably acceptable.
Finally, everyone is being rather coy about the banks. Their greed has fueled this crisis and they have recieved taxpayers money to save them. There should not only be a heavy interest placed on the debt but fines for their reckless mismanagement.
The Liberal Democrats need to stop promoting headline grabbing ideas that they know will never fly. Instead a serious and realistic debate needs to happen between all the parties and deal with what is a still emerging crisis.
If anyone thinks the worse is over, they are going to be sorely disappointed.
- James, London
Tax should be based on income, or as a one off tax such as VAT or capital gains. Constantly taxing an asset where the household may have a modest income is unfair and arbitrary. What happens when the home owner has to sell because they can't afford the repeating tax? They actually then get taxed in the form of capital gains tax for effectively not being able to afford the annual tax!
- Ross, London, UK
once again darius-ski misses the point:
INTELLIGENT debate - presumably this involves not repeating playground level insights, and pretending they are high concept?
HOW are we going to fund spending in future: what we? the same way all industrialised future spending is, and has ever been funded - economic growth and productivity
WHERE is the money coming from to repay the debt built up by the banking crises: and again, learn something about the concepts, before pretending they are big questions. quantitative easing means, by definition, that the debts will be inflated away. economically speaking the difficulty might be in how do we get the inflation genie back in the bottle.
WHO should get more, who should get less: more schoolboy socialism. this is not a question for a government in a modern industrialised economy. despite what the comrades might think, the state should not decide who gets what.
these are not important questions, they are queries posed by the under informed.
- Scotty, london
Typical,the rich think anybody who is not rich does not work hard and long hours.Well,all you rich people,keep stealing the countries wealth and expecting the poor to work for slave labour wages and the country will go the same way as all countries where the poor out number the rich by 80%.Murder and robery of the rich will first double,then double again and again,you will complain bitterly how you were targeted for being rich,but at the end of the day,poor people are sick of working as slaves to line your pockets.
- Dave, london
This is just another tax to keep the civil servants and politicans in work We need a radical rethink about just what is essential and what are none jobs If we cut the none jobs we should find we all will pay less in the long run.
- David Smith, Croydon
seems like a crackpot idea to me. some homes may be worth a lot of money, but it doesn't mean that the occupants have an income big enough to pay this extra tax.
- Nick, London, UK
This ersatz David Cameron has put his foot in it yet again. The value of all houses will be hit not only those over £1m
- David, Fulham UK
Tax should be high for those on low incomes and get less as they are promoted and pay increases as an incentive to work hard and have ambition. It is generally found that people who are wealthy have worked hard an made sacrifice to get where they are, and therefore should have more money to have happy lives, it will also mean people who are unwilling to work hard will be weeded out of society.
- Stuart, London
If you own a house worth that much money then you should be paying more tax - it's called progressive taxation and it's used by almost every Western democracy. If you're some sort of fiscal libertarian who wants flat rate taxes then move to Estonia where they introduced those a year or two ago : oh hold on, their economy has just imploded and property prices have slumped. Progressive taxes like these are not "the politics of envy", they're "the politics of common sense".
- Paul, London
The LibDems are on the wrong side of the argument on this one - way off in fact. Most Brits - especially in their target southern seats - feel that the tax burden is great enough. The debate is therefore about cuts to restore the finances, as even Mr Brown has now admitted. Any party proposing even more taxation - no matter what the source - will be fighting against the run of the debate as well as popular opinion and will quickly find itself isolated (no matter their efforts to try and ring-fence the wealthy in a very obvious way). Spot how quickly Labour move away from this one - especially as a Lib-Lab coalition is Brown's main hope after the election. What I don't understand is that the LibDems usually tack left only when forced out of the centre by Labour. Yet Labour has moved left leaving them to tack back to the centre where they belong (especially if they want to hang on to their sountern gains from a resurgent Tory Party). If they tack even further left Clegg will begin to emulate Michael Foot's political touch. Just seems that they got the wrong leader in my view - Huhne seems to have a more deft handle on these tax/spend issues. Even Labour realises that you can only bash the wealth-creators so far before they bash you back. And that winning a round of applause on Question Time with such proposals plays well with the forever-angry brigade and students (many contributing here I see), but very poorly in the cul-de-sacs of suburbia where elections are won and lost.
- Milton-Not-Keynes, London
With 80,000 homes in London worth £1,000,000 or more that's 160,000 the LibDems have lost. They're now even more pointless than before.
- Warren H, London
For those who are interested the USA funds all local schools, Police, County Colleges and Fire Services on the back of local taxes. Real Estate taxes though in the USA are causing huge movements of population, entrenched local corruption, excessive public sector vs private sector inequalities [pensions, tenure, health care etc,.] and a growing backlash. Clegg is playing the politics of envy game as usual but with little thought as to the consequences. People have to live somewhere and UK taxes are already way too high. Ignoring the fact that Clegg will never govern, the result of this tax would be the fact that older people will sell up and move or face being taxed out of their homes. This is going to be exacerbated by the looming demographic and pension deficit crisis on the near horizon. As usual the Socialist idiots propose taxes instead of the real plan to increase UK productivity, workforce skills, lower business costs, increased investment and savings. Brown talked the talk but simply dished up a confused tax, redistribution and corrupt political patronage package which has failed. The UK desparately needs someone with an economic vision which will lift the voters heads and give them hope that the sun will really shine again. Right now sadly the me too, increase tax brigade have nothing to offer the taxpayer and voter. The UK taxpayer pips have already been made to squeak.
- James Macleod Ritchie, Oyster Bay Cove
As a person who is not well off, I do not see why people who have worked hard for their homes should pay more tax than anyone else. If you want the big house and car, get off your a.. and work for it. Don't expect it to be given to you. Surely Council Tax is payment for a service the Council provides so it should be based on the number of bedrooms and occupants of the property not the value. This is simple discimination and should be challenged by the rich.
- Sean, Surrey
David, Milton Keynes
Well said,
this is why we need INTELLIGENT debate and not just sniping - HOW are we going to fund spending in future, WHERE is the money coming from to repay the debt built up by the banking crises, WHO should get more, who should get less - easy questions, but it does us no favours to avoid difficult answers by being too afraid to throw ideas on the table and debate them like adults.
Nothing should be beyond discussion - especially with an election looming.
- Darius, London UK
LibDems = more taxes = more immigration = more PC nonsense = more EU nonsense = unelectable.
- Dee Jay, Fleet Hampshire
Vince Cable knows what hes talking about all you disbelievers out there. Otherwise why do all the other parties hold him in such regard, the labour party wanted him to join them! We need someone to take the bull by the horns and say it as it is - Nick Clegg is doing it, fairly I might add, this country is in dire financial straits and needs the likes of Vince Cable don't knock him
- Kath, banbury oxon
Good to see the politics of envy is alive and well. Taking the published figures and assuming an average value of £1.5 million, this pernicious scheme would net only £200 million a year.
Can Nick Clegg please tell us which party voted with the Government to force through an extra £1 BILLION a year in payments to the EU?
Nice to know how much of Londoners' hard-earned money will be going towards bureaucracy, fraud and making our Irish cousins vote again because the EU wouldn't accept their democratic referendum result.
- Jools, London
Who decided what the value of your home is?
LibDems will never get elected, this is an appeal to every ready of The Sun, The Mirror and News of the World.
- Mortgage Broker N3, London
Michael in Sheffield said: "It is about time all those wealthy enough to own a million pound house paid their fair share in tax so the hard working people struggling at the bottom can pay less."
Talk about ignorance. Many of these people are already paying their fair share in tax, and the fair share of a number of other people too. What extra services will these people get for their money? None.
Yet again we see everyone whose home might now be worth £1m+ due to house price inflation described as "bankers" or "rich". It's nonsense. I fail to see why someone who worked hard at school and put in the hours at work to earn a good salary, or took a risk to start a business, should have their reward taken off them so other people who did not put in as much effort can benefit.
This "you've got it so I want it" mentality will undermine this country.
- Dave, Milton Keynes, UK
Of Course if the feckless, lazy and work-shy got up off their backsides and earnt their benefit money - all of them both men and women, we would not need this inequitios tax. NO WORK ABOUT ? - Do 35 Hours a week voluntary work, unpaid and draw benefit,
If people understood work ethic and ambition they might just understand the issues people have about bettering themselves about re-taxing spent and subsequently taxed earned income.
- Jeremy, Surrey
A sound idea this one, just one question though. Will MP's that "have to" have 2nd or 3rd homes be liable or will the poor hard done by darlings be exempt ?
No wonder this Country is a laughing stock.
- Steve, London
As always the Liberals can say what they want and promise the World, but we all know they will never gain power.
This is a crude attempt by Clegg to pander to the rich bashing 'working class' but unfortunately they have alientated home owners in most of the Southern Liberal constiuencies. At this rate Cameron won't even have to leave home to win the next election.
- Hansel, London
Why is everyone getting so heated up about this?... the Lib Dems are unelectable, it will never come to pass.
But for those socialists blindly following the half-baked socialist mantra of punish the rich (for 'rich' read hard workers grafters/people with talent and yes people with good fortune) - be careful you don't strangle the goose that produces the golden tax eggs - McDonalds Corp has already moved its European HQ to Switzerland - the UK does not want to make itself unattractive to foreign investment because of tax policy that is a vote winner but is economic suicide.
- Paddy, London
Keith Price- This story is not about Osbourne and the Tories, it is about the Laboural Democrats and their latest sop to those blinkered lefties, like yourself, who crave the politics of envy.
In any event, your beloved McClown has raised taxes several times a year, every year, for the last 12 years of their Britain-hating incumbency. So why wouldn't anyone believe the Tory claim?- You don't need to be Derren Brown to predict more punitive tax and profligate spend from Soviet Labour, LOL!
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster
Er, Nick, you need to get into No. 10 first.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one
With the inflation that'll kick in after all this quantitative easing, you'll all be living in £1bil+ homes, except, of course, those in cardboard city, who'll be stuffing only bare £millions into their sleeping bags to keep warm at night.
- Threaded, Roskilde, Denmark
This is such a poorly thought out idea that it must have been dreamed up over the week-end for media attention.
There will be some people bought quite modest properties say 25 yrs ago that maybe above the £1 million threshold today but have never been higher rate tax payers.
You only know the value of a property once it is sold and until then it is pure speculation what something is worth.
If the lib dems are really angling towards introducing capital gains tax on profits from property sales then they should be honest enough to say so but I don't think it is a vote winner.
Whilst the majority do not live in high value properties they know that once introduced the calls to bring down the threshold to include more and more people increase as govt debt increases. Look at demands to increase student tuition fees.
It is so much easier to dream up ways to tax people than to come up with policies that will create wealth.
- Gary, london
Britain is now practicaly the most unequal nation in the western world with the possible exception of the USA. It is about time all those wealthy enough to own a million pound house paid their fair share in tax so the hard working people struggling at the bottom can pay less. The recession has hardly affected the rich banking community at all, yet they helped cause it. It is about time they coughed up.
- Michael, Sheffield, UK
Yet more popularist gallery politics.
Tax on posh houses already exists. It's called (a) STAMP DUTY (b) COUNCIL TAX (c) VAT on bills.
Making a retired couple pay a few extra grand a year for living in a big house that they've spend all their working lives paying could be a spectacular own goal.
No doubt there are may in Twickers who would agree.
- Joseph Yossarian, London.
If the cost of living in London is higher than most places in the UK then, why on earth do people want to live there. There is no reason why the cost of living should be higher there than anywhere else. People who live in the south however, have easier access to the continent where they can buy goods to offset the higher living London costs. The very rich wont suffer because of the extra tax on the million pound homes.
T H Leeds
- Thomas Hayes, Leeds UK
There must be a lot of older people in houses bought years ago and now worth a fortune, but with relatively modest incomes if they're now pensioners. Meanwhile, someone earning several times the older person's income but choosing to live in a smaller flat wouldn't have to pay. Not very fair, is it? Not everyone with a high net worth chooses to live in an expensive property.
- Freya, London
Comrade Darius, needs to stop reciting the policy manifesto from every GCSE level book on socialism and get back to the real world.
Start looking at Purchasing Power Parity, and real interest rates and stop parroting on like a new student member of the socialist workers party.
- Scotty, london
We always forget this is not the true Liberal party of old, but disaffected Socialist Labour Supporters that couldn’t get their way in the labour party just a few short years back. Social Democrats – renamed Liberal Democrats, so as not to frighten the voters away.
These are basically the Socialists that didn’t have the money from the Unions behind them, as was traditional for their parent party; the Labour Party.
So bashing anyone that appears to have more money than the norm is in their nature and easy. Unfortunately there aren’t really that many rich people out there to make a difference, so prolific state spending always hits everyone.
- Ian, Reading, England
Forgive the pun, but it's dreadfully rich of George Osborne to claim that the Labour Party intend raising income tax levels next year, when his own party have announced that they are planning to go much further. These lies have backfired on the Tories very badly.
- Keith Price, Luton England
Historically it must be plain for all to see now that the madness of "anything goes" lending ultimately led to two things - a scramble to get on the housing ladder (also encouraged by the media) for the sake of MAKING MONEY - the house as investment, not a home, which directly led to uncontrolled house price inflation, and secondly encouraged the banks to generate even more debt from the feeding frenzy.
This is a similar scenario which led to the 1930 depression, except the masses were then encouraged to buy shares on the back of (apparently) ever increasing prices, as now with property.
The result is the banking crises, taxpayer bale outs, near-zero interest rates, and finally printing money to keep people spending.
Now you can’t please all of the people all of the time, and NuLbour was certainly out to please those involved in property speculation - and they should be WELL pleased, because they could buy and make a small fortune simply by doing nothing but sitting in their "HOMES".
Now we have the situation where the prudent taxpayer is being punished, as will be their children, first timers cannot afford a decent home whilst the home owner/spendaholic is rewarded with yet more handouts, scrappage, low interest, etc - and yet THEY are the ones who feel aggrieved when house prices actually FALL a little?
This imbalance does not bode well for the future wellbeing of society.
So who`s to pay?
Those who made a fortune in the mad years, or everyone else?
- Darius, London UK
You don't have to be tht wealthy to have a million pound house in London. What if you're up to your eyeballs in debt and just living in an area for the schools? Also as a neighbour I'll be interested to see how Mr.Clegg's property is valued.
- Mark, London
All this will do is encourage even more wealth creatators to leave - where will that leave the economy??
Also why should we pay more tax to these politicians?? They talk about the poor and yet they feather their own nests though lavish and dubious expenses
- Very Very Angry At Paying Tax For Mp'S Expeses, Home Counties
This tax is a great idea. It is comparatively piffling amount to be paid by the very richest in society, with the money to go to a very useful cause - cutting the tax for the poorest workers. Bravo to the Lib Dems!
Yet there are a whole bunch of reactionary, socially retrogressive idiots who want to shout it down as a suggestion. The Tories would do NOTHING for poor people because they hate them and are desperate to preserve the privileged position of the very richest, tax breaks and all. After all, that is who they get all their party funds from, isn't it?
- Robert C, London, UK
What a tragic own goal for the Lib Dems. They will disappear from London and the South East and Vince will no longer look so wise. I suppose he looked wise because we were comparing him to the financial clowns in the other parties. Wonder if there'll be some "clarification" when they realise their mistake.
- Stephen C, London
What has always stopped the Lib Dems in the past is that when voted in at by-elections and local government they show their true old labour colours
- Bj, London
As expected,the Libdems are making sure they have no chance of actually getting anywhere near power.
Why would they want the aggro?They have nice lives in opposition.
- Jimfred, London UK
Good, theyre wealthy by avoiding tax and screwing the poor anyway
- Dac - Ealing, London
If you own one house worth £2m you pay the new tax. What if you own 4 houses worth £500k each?
My guess is that not much thought has gone into this. It's just a headline grabber for a fairly pointless party.
- Charlie, London
How to win votes. Yet another envious politician?
- Tojo, Hythe
I have a house worth much more than a million but I now don't earn anything like what I did in my peak so why should I have to pay such a premium?
Lib Dem nil, conservatives one (own goal by Lib Dem)
- Andy, Winchester
On behalf of all the sane people of Sutton, Cheam and Carshalton, thank you Mr Clegg, we've being trying to get your useless dead weights out for a while now. If you can help us any further by coming up with more hair brained schemes doomed to failure then please feel free to do so, it's nice to see that someone in the Liberals does something as the MP for Cheam seems to be all photo opportunity and no trousers.
- Bob, Cheam
They are trying to win the vote of the 'poor' who cannot relate to 'Super Tax Labour' and 'Middle Class Conservative'.
Cheap tactic by the Lib Dems to try and grab a few votes from a new pool of voters looking for a free windfall.
A Lib Dem vote is a wasted vote - but at least its not a BNP vote.
- Mike Barry, Manchester
Retrospective taxation is corrosive and undermines any future long term investment. This is one of the biggest issues facing the UK. Governments keep moving the goalposts on taxation... usually on long term investments (which are a captive audience). The net result will be less investment in the UK and no long term investment.
It's a slippery slope... £1m houses today... £500K tomorrow and anything over £100K 3 years hence... our politicians have a habit of introducing a tax and then extending its scope to catch more and more citizens.
Don't be fooled.
- Stephen, Swindon
So presumably because there is greater demand in some parts of the country to others, in London created by wealthy foreign nationals, and by simple economics greater demand increases area wide increases in price. Nick Clegg will of course ensure a uniform regulation of demand to ensure that there is equality of all for home owners !
Just remember the old saying 'a Liberal (Democrat) vote is a wasted vote', true even today
- James, City of London
"backlash from London voters".
How many voters live in houses worth more than £1 million? How many of them vote Liberal Democrat?
- Mick, London, England
A tired and worn out sop to the left and the gullible. There are simply not enough of these people to make any discernable difference to the dire mess that McClown and his comedy of errors have got us into.
There are millions of spongers in this country who make no contribution to the exchequer (or society at large), but use public services disproportionately; especially the Police, who have to keep their feral offspring under control.
Then we have countless unaccountable qangos, set up by Britain-hating Nuliebour for the sole purpose of eradicating any democratic input into the delivery of local services, and costing us £billions.
That is where the domestic axe should fall first.
How about hundreds of £millions in overseas aid to buy mansions and limousines for African despots?
Then there is the EU, which costs us an absolute fortune in contributions (taxes) and the cost of its overbearing regulation (£140 million per day). Little chance of Clegg & Co. even considering that issue, though; the LibDems are the most EUrophile party of them all.
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster
Fairness is a tricky concept to get right.
OK for many people with a £1M house the tax may not hurt, but take the example of a retired couple who have worked hard all their life for a nice retirment property have small funds now....they will have to sell up their dream home.
And the additional tax on earners over £100K, souunds easy and fair on the face of it, but there are different situations.
A single person earning £100K is very different to a married man with 4 children earning £100K and wife staying home to support them.
And that is yet again different to if the couple with 4 children were both working, ea