The left-leaning political weekly the New Statesman has an article arguing that Rachel Reeves should crash the housing market with next week’s Budget.
The article ultimately urges the government to adopt a so-called ‘fair’ property tax one home ownership, charging owners an annual levy of 0.48% on the updated valuation of their house or flat. In return, council tax and stamp duty would be abolished.
The article argues that such a proportional property tax would deter house prices from rising, because the annual tax would too.
But along the way the article has substantial criticism of landlords, describing them as “the already wealthy.”
It says Gordon Brown, when Prime Minister, removed tax relief on mortgage interest for homeowners but failed to do so for landlords “creating an industry worth tens of billions of pounds per year that was based on tax avoidance and the transfer of money from wages and student loans to the savings of the already wealthy.”
The article goes on to say that the current exodus of landlords is good news because it adds supply to the market and adds that ”if homes are being sold by landlords and bought by renters, this should help balance supply.”
It concludes by saying there would be “shouting” against a proportional tax because there would be some losers from the policy: “Many people have quite understandably invested for their retirement in buy-to-let … Some people lose out from every policy decision, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.
You can read the whole piece here.
This article is taken from Landlord Today