This morning the Mail on Sunday reported that George Osborne has promised there will be no mansion tax, no wealth tax and the council tax freeze will be extended. Homeowners are safe for now, but why has Osborne made that call?
It might be something to do with a past Conservative Party Conference back in 2007 when the party was in a similarly dire situation. The then Shadow Chancellor pledged to cut inheritance tax by increasing the threshold, put Gordon Brown off calling an early election and ended the honeymoon it is now hard to believe he ever enjoyed.
Britain already has the highest property taxes of any developed economy and council tax is desperately unpopular. You could argue that a new, more progressive, property tax would win people over. Council tax isn’t exceptional though. In the United States, property taxes have led to more taxpayer revolts than any other tax.
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