mansion tax

[crankedup]

fblm said:

crankedup said:

Financial education should be high on the education curriculum imo.

I certainly agree but that's not all. There should be a compulsory GCSE covering personal finances through basic corporate and government. I have a US 401k and 3 UK Corporate Pensions. I can log on to the 401k now and tell you the NAV as of last night, I can chop and change between 2 dozen investments from cash, through european bond funds to latam equities, all with very clear charges and expenses, all benchmarked to major indecies. Or I could just move the entire 401k to a segregated account at my brokers and trade anything I want in it for zero cost. Conversely of my UK pensions 1 is reasonably accesable the other 2 are IMO deliberately opaque and unsurprisingly also poor performers. For years I never received anything from either, despite never changing my UK address, so I made a huge effort to track them down and gain electronic access. They could not be more difficult to manage, even just getting a value involves looking up how many 'units' I have, then logging in to another site to get the value of a unit etc... just horrible, forget comparing performance with an index. Changing investments is a nightmare and every year the websites change and make it difficult to access and honestly their tactics have worked; I haven't looked at them for a few years now. Just too much effort. The whole UK pensions industry needs a massive kick in the a55 and some consumer friendly standards applied. At the very least brokers should be allowed to offer SIPP wrappers/segregated accounts which you can move all your various fragmented pensions to and manage yourself. A fvcking monkey would beat most fund managers and he'd do it for bananas not a 5 million quid bonus and use of the corporate jet.

Not very often we agree on an issue, this makes a quite rare event! I know the pensions industry is under the looking glass, as mentioned earlier. Certainly needs some updating on practices and plenty of other issues as you mention.
You come across as a person who knows his onions as opposed to spuds, if you find it a right pain trying to get information as to how your investments are doing imagine the people who have little or zero knowledge of where to look never mind decipher information.

[crankedup]

Hol said:

This discussion/debate REALLY could do with its own thread. (its so off topic IMHO)

Benchmarks etc, are usually derived using funds of the same sort.

So a FTSE tracker fund, would be benchmarked against other tracker funds with similar investments and its performance would typically be based on ist performance against the competition.

Are you above average, in the top 10, top 25% etc.

I cannot think of an alternate method, unless you want to compare apples with pears.

The only benchmark that could work is for investors to vote with their feet and move investments to a stronger more successful investing Company. Not going to happen is it!

[walm]

crankedup said:

fblm said:

Conversely of my UK pensions 1 is reasonably accesable the other 2 are IMO deliberately opaque and unsurprisingly also poor performers. For years I never received anything from either, despite never changing my UK address, so I made a huge effort to track them down and gain electronic access. They could not be more difficult to manage, even just getting a value involves looking up how many 'units' I have, then logging in to another site to get the value of a unit etc... just horrible, forget comparing performance with an index. Changing investments is a nightmare and every year the websites change and make it difficult to access and honestly their tactics have worked; I haven't looked at them for a few years now. Just too much effort.

You come across as a person who knows his onions as opposed to spuds, if you find it a right pain trying to get information as to how your investments are doing imagine the people who have little or zero knowledge of where to look never mind decipher information.

+2
It is a total joke - I could not agree more.
The advent of SIPPs is at least helping us move in the right direction.

[Hol]

crankedup said:

Hol said:

This discussion/debate REALLY could do with its own thread. (its so off topic IMHO)

Benchmarks etc, are usually derived using funds of the same sort.

So a FTSE tracker fund, would be benchmarked against other tracker funds with similar investments and its performance would typically be based on ist performance against the competition.

Are you above average, in the top 10, top 25% etc.

I cannot think of an alternate method, unless you want to compare apples with pears.

The only benchmark that could work is for investors to vote with their feet and move investments to a stronger more successful investing Company. Not going to happen is it!

Err..
That already happens today, with investments!
It is a choice investors have and they can and do vote with their feet today, if their investments suck.

Or do you mean, company pension fund money?
In which case the company pension trustees will be appointed to monitor performance and hire/fire fund managers.

[turbobloke]

Angelina Jolie isn't keen and might stay away if Red Ed's lot get elected next year.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2849863/Jo...

[fido]

turbobloke said:

Angelina Jolie isn't keen and might stay away if Red Ed's lot get elected next year.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2849863/Jo...

Jolie, Klass - who next! Have an idea for the next Tory election poster ..

[crankedup]

Hol said:

crankedup said:

Hol said:

This discussion/debate REALLY could do with its own thread. (its so off topic IMHO)

Benchmarks etc, are usually derived using funds of the same sort.

So a FTSE tracker fund, would be benchmarked against other tracker funds with similar investments and its performance would typically be based on ist performance against the competition.

Are you above average, in the top 10, top 25% etc.

I cannot think of an alternate method, unless you want to compare apples with pears.

The only benchmark that could work is for investors to vote with their feet and move investments to a stronger more successful investing Company. Not going to happen is it!

Err..
That already happens today, with investments!
It is a choice investors have and they can and do vote with their feet today, if their investments suck.

Or do you mean, company pension fund money?
In which case the company pension trustees will be appointed to monitor performance and hire/fire fund managers.

Yes sorry I didn't make myself clear at all, I did mean the clients money tucked away under pension fund management. Now whether or not trustees are active is another matter. Seems to me the whole system is addled with pitfalls, always has been but many more ordinary (like me) people are aware by reading the Daily Mail and such like. Not to mention that the trust in the banking sector has been destroyed in recent years.

[turbobloke]

A CEBR study commissioned by Fairhometax.uk founder Howard Cox finds that the Miliband Mansion Tax would:

• apply to London and the south east mostly which has 96 per cent of homes threatened by the tax
• disproportionately hit pensioners and those living in terraced homes in London and the South East
• reduce stamp duty receipts by £2bn
• and therefore fail to raise £1.2bn unless £3m homes were taxed at £24k/year

[burwoodman]

turbobloke said:

A CEBR study commissioned by Fairhometax.uk founder Howard Cox finds that the Miliband Mansion Tax would:

• apply to London and the south east mostly which has 96 per cent of homes threatened by the tax
• disproportionately hit pensioners and those living in terraced homes in London and the South East
• reduce stamp duty receipts by £2bn
• and therefore fail to raise £1.2bn unless £3m homes were taxed at £24k/year

Have i got this correct-that communist prick is looking at 1% per annum, so starting at 20k? And not to worry, we will take it when you croke on top of the death taxes.

[turbobloke]

burwoodman said:

turbobloke said:

A CEBR study commissioned by Fairhometax.uk founder Howard Cox finds that the Miliband Mansion Tax would:

• apply to London and the south east mostly which has 96 per cent of homes threatened by the tax
• disproportionately hit pensioners and those living in terraced homes in London and the South East
• reduce stamp duty receipts by £2bn
• and therefore fail to raise £1.2bn unless £3m homes were taxed at £24k/year

Have i got this correct-that communist prick is looking at 1% per annum, so starting at 20k? And not to worry, we will take it when you croke on top of the death taxes.

Interviewed with Red Ed the astute Myleene Klass said:

You can't just point at things and tax them

Red Ed hasn't said:

Correct. First, I think of a number, double it, add another big number then multiply by three, take away the number I first thought of but then add it back, then mention the NHS several times

[burwoodman]

I'm not one to read Youtube comments but genuinely surprised at the obvious hatred in this country towards people who do well for themselves. I suppose it's no different elsewhere.

Having just paid a huge amount of stamp duty isn't this enough FFS.

[Guybrush]

burwoodman said:

I'm not one to read Youtube comments but genuinely surprised at the obvious hatred in this country towards people who do well for themselves. I suppose it's no different elsewhere.

Having just paid a huge amount of stamp duty isn't this enough FFS.

Agreed, Labour will always try to stir up envy and resentment of a particular section of the community, having spent the previous few years laying the foundations for the creation of that very scenario. It's an old trick of theirs. Then, they will introduce an envy tax agreed by the masses and later that tax will not raise enough (surprise surprise) and it will be moved down the chain so that slowly more and more people will be paying the tax. Thus, the fools who agreed with the tax will be signing up to pay it eventually.

[turbobloke]

Guybrush said:

burwoodman said:

I'm not one to read Youtube comments but genuinely surprised at the obvious hatred in this country towards people who do well for themselves. I suppose it's no different elsewhere.

Having just paid a huge amount of stamp duty isn't this enough FFS.

Agreed, Labour will always try to stir up envy and resentment of a particular section of the community, having spent the previous few years laying the foundations for the creation of that very scenario. It's an old trick of theirs. Then, they will introduce an envy tax agreed by the masses and later that tax will not raise enough (surprise surprise) and it will be moved down the chain so that slowly more and more people will be paying the tax. Thus, the fools who agreed with the tax will be signing up to pay it eventually.

Balls has said he'll grab the envy tax from houses of London and SE home-owning families straight away if, heaven forbid, Labour are elected.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2884526/We...

Article said:

Mr Balls has asked the Treasury to start preparations for such a tax before the election.

[Alex]

The money raised, if any, will be peanuts. It is the pure politics of envy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2853524/Fa...

[Burwood]

contango said:

I doubt this will ever come to pass, there will be enough of us in London & SE who will just refuse to pay!

if labour scum get in you will pay. 3k if nothing but i think it's a disgusting tax.

[anonymous-user]

About time this started to be called the Home Ownership Penalty Tax.

Call it what it is. That's also a name that will stick once it gets applied to homes at the £250k level.

[audidoody]

Burwood said:

if labour scum get in you will pay. 3k if nothing but i think it's a disgusting tax.

If you're a basic rate taxpayer you'll have to earn £5,000 extra just to find the £3,000 net.

Here's the best riposte to the mansion tax I've seen so far:

"WHY LABOUR’S MANSION TAX IS ONE OF THE WORST IDEAS IN POLITICAL HISTORY:
1) IT’S AN ECONOMIC FALLACY:
(a) Labour claims its Mansion Tax (MT) will raise £1.2b for the NHS. It won’t. And here’s why:
(i) £1.2b is the estimated GROSS REVENUE (the total revenue that is raised before associated costs and losses are deducted). The NET PROFIT (the actual sum of money that will be raised for the Treasury) will be very considerably less; and is calculated by deducting from the GROSS REVENUE both the administrative costs of operating MT and all consequential revenue losses; which includes (but is not limited to) significant leakage of STAMP DUTY, CAPITAL GAINS TAX, INHERITANCE TAX and INCOME TAX. Hence, even IF £1.2b GROSS REVENUE were to be raised by MT (which is not going to happen), the NET PROFIT (and hence the actual sum of additional money that will be available to be injected into the NHS) will be a mere fraction of this.
(ii) Substantially LESS than £1.2b GROSS REVENUE will in fact be raised. Labour have erroneously done their economic calculations as if MT will be operating within a vacuum; and in doing so have failed to take into account any and all causality effects that will transpire as a result of MT being brought into existence. Such as, for example, the fact that, for many reasons, the number of £2m+ homes will
significantly drop.
(b) The NET PROFIT that MT will actually raise won't make ANY significant difference to the NHS whatsoever. It’ll be wholly insufficient because the annual NHS bill = £95b, and its shortfall = £30b.
(c) A recent independent economic study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has revealed “fatal flaws” in Labour’s Mansion Tax. The damning report shows that MT will “kill house sales and trigger £2 billion slump in Stamp Duty”. Furthermore, it confirms that “elderly homeowners, not the wealthy, will be hit hardest”; and as if that wasn’t bad enough already, that the new tax will not raise the planned £1.2 billion for the NHS. The consequential drop in Stamp Duty alone, the report says, could be “even greater than the proceeds of the new mansion tax – rendering it pointless”. Mr Cox, who commissioned the CEBR study, said: “This report shows that Labour [have] got their sums wrong… and suggests their calculations were written on the back of an envelope and not properly thought
through.”
2) IT’S MISTARGETED & UNFAIR:
a) 96% of homes affected are in London & SE;
b) Most not mansions but flats (38%) or terraced houses (46%);
c) Most people affected have already paid up to 70% total in taxes already as IT, SDLT, IHT, VAT & CGT;
d) Many are cash-poor. Deferral equates to SDLT & IHT rise which are
already highly taxed;
e) CEBR economists have said that deferral will without a shadow of a doubt backfire, because “people will simply never sell their homes as a result, blocking the property market and leaving the debts to mount up; and many homes would, as a result, will become ‘unsellable’ because they would have to pay so much back-dated mansion tax”;
f) Mortgages arent allowed for and tax threshold is £42K+ gross household income,
so middle-income families with mortgages will be affected and won’t be able to
afford to pay the tax;
g) The tax penalizes families comprising 3+ generations who have chosen to live all under one roof to save costs;
h) MT taxes only property, not ALL assets, so the super-rich with millions in other assets get off scot-free. MT fails to ensure all the super-rich pay their fair share; some will pay nothing, while others have to pay more than appropriate. For example, with MT someone who owns a singular property worth £2m with a £700,000 mortgage and hence net wealth of £1.3 million will have to pay, but a guy who owns £400m of assets including private jets, helicopters, luxury sports cars and expensive artwork, and lives in a gigantic castle in Scotland worth £1.8m would not have to pay a penny. How in what universe is that fair?!
3) IT’S NOT JUST THE SUPER-RICH WHO WILL BE AFFECTED:
a) A significant number of the super-rich will move their businesses, their wealth and likely themselves too out of the UK, then the UK’s economy will weaken and total tax revenue for the Treasury reduce. The top 1% of the UK's population are responsible for circa 30% of the UK's total tax revenue. The elite class (= top 6%) are responsible for even more than this. Should they choose to move their businesses, their wealth and themselves out of the UK, this would directly cause a drop in tax revenue for the Treasury of UP TO 30%;
b) IHT when introduced was to be paid ONLY by the super-rich but now
middle-class families have to pay it. The same will happen with Mansion Tax.
It’s just a matter of time. UPDATE: The recent independent economic study by CEBR has revealed that the MT’s net WILL widen over time to include more and more homes, with 2,000 additional homes becoming affected by the tax within the first 36 months alone.
4) CHARITIES WILL BE HIT:
Lord Winston (Labour peer), who devotes a lot of his time to raising money for charities, has said about the Mansion Tax: “It makes it extremely difficult to raise charitable donations. Because [those liable to pay the mansion tax] will start refusing one of the most important areas of [charity] giving, legacy gifts… That will affect charities like Cancer Research UK, which relies on legacy gifts”, which are in fact its primary source of income. (N.B. A legacy gift is a sum of money that is donated to a charity in a person’s will, and paid to said charity upon their death. With the Mansion Tax, with respect to individuals who are cash-poor / asset-rich, instead exemptions (which is what is appropriate and needed) there will be only deferrals of payments, which will accrue and be paid as a lump sum as and when the property owner passes away and/or the property is sold). Furthermore, the Mansion Tax, being a government tax will take legal precedence over any such legacy gifts, even when still included in someone’s will. In other words, in the legal ‘pecking order’ for receipt of funds the Mansion Tax will rank higher than charities, and hence monies that would otherwise be paid to whatever charities will end up being paid to pay the Mansion Tax bill instead.
5) IT “WILL FORCE THE CLOSURE OF HISTORIC HOUSES”:
The Historic Houses Association (HHA) has warned. MT will affect 1,590 mansions and castles that are a source of tourism and tourist-related income for the UK. These should be exempt but, as is, they won’t be. It’s a lose-lose, because if Labour makes them exempt then a big chunk of the £1.2b gross annual revenue that is claimed MT will raise will be lost, in addition to the items listed in (1) above. HHA also said the tax would “push owners towards financial ruin. But there is a lot more to it than that… The houses have a big impact in their area because they provide employment.” And such employment would cease, with THOUSANDS of individuals set to lose their jobs as a result. And then theres the local villages and the people living there, who thrive on the business they attain on the back of the tourists who visit and the marketing done by these open mansion houses and castles. Local hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and the like for example. They will be hit hard too.
The crux of the problems with the Mansion Tax is that there are too many flaws
and problems, too many of the rich get off scot-free, and too little revenue
will be raised to make it worthwhile.
Labour’s Mansion Tax wins the award for the worst tax idea ever, in that it has
the most things wrong with it whilst at the same time raising comparatively an
insignificant amount of money for the Treasury. The bitter irony here is that
the pathetic sum that Labour’s Mansion Tax will actually raise, which in
reality will only be a few hundred million pounds net profit, won't make ANY
significant difference to the NHS whatsoever.
IMO what’s really required here is to BOTH:
1) Clamp down and close loopholes with respect to the EXISTING taxes that many of the rich and large corporations should be paying, but are currently avoiding doing so - this alone would raise substantially more net revenue than the Mansion Tax; AND
2) To comprehensively review and update the council tax system; which, should comprise NOT ONLY adding more Council Tax Bands, BUT ALSO shifting the payment distribution significantly upwards such that the existing Council Tax Bands A to H pay significantly LESS than they currently pay, new higher Bands I (£500K+) & J (£1m+) should pay THE SAME as existing G & H, and new higher Bands K
(£2m+), L (£4m+), M (£8m+) and N (£16m+) should pay significantly proportionately MORE; with total revenue evolving to be appropriately split between local authorities and the Treasury. Wherein, the existing Council Tax exemptions and discounts will prevent people being forced to pay more than appropriate with respect to their circumstances (unlike Mansion Tax). Plus an updating of an EXISTING tax (Council Tax) is substantially more palatable and will be better accepted by all than the addition of a NEW tax (Mansion Tax), especially with all of its many fundamental flaws and countless issues".

[Burwood]

I agree that it's repugnant and the little st is brain damaged to think people who own 2m quid houses are wealthy.

[legzr1]

Well said.

We all know that £2,000,000+ home owners are actually on the bread line...

[crankedup]

Initially I was in favour of this particular tax (until I realised I would be paying as well) until I looked slightly more into it. Even I, the great Crankedup;) saw the errors of my way finding this tax to be wholly unfair, unreasonable and possibly damaging to the economy.



ps : in brackets - its a unfunny kidding.