FT.com / UK / Politics & policy - CGT rise first big test for Cameron coalition .
Get a grip over at the FT, I suggest.
To claim that "CGT rise first big test for Cameron coalition" is ludicrous.
The world economy falling apart all around it whilst the ConDems put in place policies designed to ensure we have a depression in the UK will be the first BIG test for the coalition.
CGT is a minor spat in comparison.
One they have to win, of course.
But let's keep a sense of perspective. Tax due on second homes is a non-issue compared to the devastation of millions of lives - which is what the ConDems are promising.
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But it is the cause of a split in the Coalition which appeared even before the Queen’s speech.Cameron has got to choose between Cable,Clegg ,Huhne and Liberal policies and Redwood/Spelman clinging to a past which has worked so well for them:ensuring that their voters are kept supplied with steady unearned capital gains in asset values.For most of their voters this means house prices and continued house price inflation.Hence the panic over the tax on second homes.Oliver Kamm on The Times is already calling for CG tax on main residences.The Homeownerist faction (Homeownerism being a political stunt to stay in power by bribing homeowners with largely notional increases in house prices)do have a point: that CGT on houses slows down the property market.So the obvious solution is LVT which by being continuous dissuades people from piling into property and also forces people hanging onto land to build more houses.There is fundamental issue here: the difference between unearned wealth and earned income.For fifty years ,since they abolished Schedule A of Income tax on domestic dwellings,the Conservatives have run the country into the ground by privileging mass unearned wealth in housing over earned income from employment and self-employment.This is really the old politics that everybody has been rather prematurely celebrating.
Oh my god I’ve just seen Channel 4 news at 7.00 talking about the CGT. What a load of non-sense
Apparantly CGT is going to affect ‘ordinary middle class people’ (said the accountant on C4 from the grounds of his mansion!) and affect ordinary savers (annual exemption of £10k – if you are making gains of over this it could hardly be classed as ‘ordinary’), savers (who invest in shares? surely thats not saving but investing Mr ex head of Brewin Dolphin – shouldn’t you know this sort of stuff).
My final and most increadulous observation – increasing CGT rate will make people hold on to assets more (this was dressed up as a bad thing). Isn’t this what we want – med-long term investment rather than short term speculation
Honestly, what a load of rubbish – couldn’t they have got someone on to blow this out of the water
Media with the nutritional content of a Big-Mac
@Accountant Southampton
It seems that the lunatics are taking over the asylum….