I have ‘seen out’ four recessions and I have been ‘treading the boards’ now in residential estate agency for over 40 years and I can see ‘the writing on the wall’.  Mansion Tax is a punitive tax on aspiration; it will not raise any money at all but will certainly cause mayhem in property values, principally in London, which will put the fledgling UK recovery at risk. Here are a few thoughts:

Q: How easily will Mansion Tax be implemented?
A: The Courts/Tribunals will be besieged with claims and counter claims disputing values, particularly at around £2million, and nothing will be paid until these are resolved and that could take years.

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Whilst it is laudable for Eric Pickles, and the Tory Party, to make some valiant attempt to solve the first time buyers housing problem I am not sure whether this Help-to-Rent scheme takes us any further up the road.

A discount from market rent, organised through government funding of housing associations, is well intentioned and certainly gives the applicant a discounted rent for seven years with a first option to buy at the end. Continue reading →

The penny has dropped, here we are searching for justification for these Labour Party policies on economic grounds and struggling to find them.  The reason why it is so difficult for economists and political commentators to demonstrate that these socialistically inspired policies would not raise the monies that Ed Balls is suggesting is that they don’t need to raise any money at all.

In fact, by way of illustration, the Treasury themselves have carried out independent assessments and have found that 45% high income tax  raises more money than 50%.  Why then is the Shadow Chancellor promoting the latter? Continue reading →