Property experts have warned that tightening the tax squeeze on homeowners threatens to not only trigger fresh turmoil in the housing market, but also punish working families in ‘modest’ homes.
Tax by the backdoor
During his time as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham said he believed work was overtaxed while assets, such as property, were undertaxed.
Tweaking the threshold of a policy that is already in motion would offer a quick-fire way to get his hands on a bigger slice of the UK’s £7tn housing wealth – without ostensibly breaking Labour’s manifesto pledge not to go after working people.
Jimmy Waight, of estate agency John D Wood, says lowering the threshold would “cause carnage” and effectively be a tax on workers by the backdoor.
“People living in £1.5m homes in London and the outer suburbs aren’t oligarchs or multimillionaires – they probably have quite big mortgages and have worked bloody hard.
“In south-west London, £1.5m means a pretty bog-standard terraced house, and in central London it’s a two-bedroom flat.
“These aren’t jet-setters flying off to St Tropez every summer. It will impact what Labour calls ‘normal working people’.”
After accounting for inflation, an additional 30,000 homes could be caught by the tax by the time it comes into force in 2028, separate analysis by The Telegraph reveals.
By 2031, when homes are due to be revalued, the total taxable properties could have risen to more than 350,000.
