As we all know the Mansion Tax, as proposed, is a wealth tax by any other name and is not designed to raise any money for the NHS but simply to court populism. It has never worked in any part of the world but this does not stop the Ed’s ‘bandwagon of envy’!

In the meantime it is already badly affecting the residential market with far fewer transactions at a time when the government need as much revenue by way of SDLT to dent the deficit. Continue reading →

It Is not enough that Mr. Putin is trying to put the ‘Genie back in the bottle’ by grabbing Crimea and possibly Ukraine, he is now trying to stop the tide of money leaving Russia for safer climes by imposing a penal tax on the exodus of wealth.

Frankly, the substantial fall in the Rouble against world currencies should dissuade enough Russian oligarchs from taking their money out of the jurisdiction; however, it appears this is not enough to stem the outflow. Continue reading →

You can tell, can’t you, that Mr. Balls has had his ears ‘chewed off’ by the anxious Labour MPs in the south, particularly in London (Tessa Jowell and Glenda Jackson), by the fearsome backlash from the Mansion Tax proposals that is now the main plank of their manifesto policies.

Having ‘stolen’ another policy from the Lib Dems, in the absence of any other more worthy and imaginative proposal, they are now back-tracking in order to prevent potential Labour supporters in London ‘biting them on the butt’.  Do you sense a wafting of the reflux caused by the dropping of the 10p tax rate by Mr. ‘Inglorious’ Brown? Continue reading →