Osbourne says no to currency union.

The only good stampt dutyis a zero one – let the property market function properly.

Not a terrible idea – but where do you make up the lost tax revenue?

Not a terrible idea – but where do you make up the lost tax revenue?

Government needs to justify collecting any tax and its basis and this one only catches big numbers because of the impact on the housing market of multiple policy failures.

The issue with stamp duty is it is not a tax on wealth or income. Two people living in the same value of house moving every 5 years vs every 25 pay different amounts of tax. So it is a tax on mobility.

A fairer way in my view to deal with higher value property, or any property for that matter, which would also answer your question, would be to reduce the level of central government funding to local authorities and increase the council tax.

Of course Mols but there wouldn’t be much point of comparing parts of England an Wales that have similar house price profiles to Scotland would there?

Er yes, there would..

oldbloke – Member
5 years vs every 25 pay different amounts of tax. So it is a tax on mobility.

Or a tax on profiteering from the property market depending on how you look at that.

or a tax on working your arse off turning a sizeable but grotty flat that had been neglected for 25 years into a nice family home, depending on how you look at it.

vintagewino – Member
or a tax on working your arse off turning a sizeable but grotty flat that had been neglected for 25 years into a nice family home, depending on how you look at it.

Are you intending to punt that nice family home for a profit or live in it?

Or a tax on profiteering from the property market depending on how you look at that.

The only profiteering is by government. Created the conditions for housing boom then tax the change. Stamp duty is not a tax on profits as that would take account of the cost of purchase. Even that would be preferable.

Moving house to find work is normal and finding yourself having to lose 18 months pay to move does not encourage that.

well I’ve been living in it for 5 years but now my family is outgrowing it so I was thinking of punting it for a profit and using the proceedings to buy somewhere bigger.

oldbloke – Member

Moving house to find work is normal and finding yourself having to lose 18 months pay to move does not encourage that.The vast majority of people will pay less under these new rules, so it’ll be less of a barrier.

The vast majority of people will pay less under these new rules, so it’ll be less of a barrier

It remains a barrier and has no justification.

So, you buy a house for £500k. 5 years later you have to move job. You sell for £500k and buy a new house near the new job for £500k. No profit made at all yet you have to shell out a tax. Unjustifiable.

If you want to tax profit on housing, the thing to do is revoke the exemption from CGT for the main house. But they’re not doing that.

oldbloke – Member
The vast majority of people will pay less under these new rules, so it’ll be less of a barrier
It remains a barrier and has no justification.
So, you buy a house for £500k. 5 years later you have to move job. You sell for £500k and buy a new house near the new job for £500k. No profit made at all yet you have to shell out a tax. Unjustifiable.

If you want to tax profit on housing, the thing to do is revoke the exemption from CGT for the main house. But they’re not doing that.you are arguing fantasy, no one is going to get rid of stamp duty or this new land tax.

I think this land tax is absolutely fair given that it’s and either/or situation, not an tax or no tax question.

incidently, how would you raise lost revenue if property tax was abolished?

btw when I say fair I mean fair in a scottish context, I can see merit in having different rates set across the uk.

Not arguing fantasy at all – arguing for coherent tax policies. This isn’t coherent. Successful and justifiable taxes work on the basis of taxing a justifiable event – so you earn a wage, you pay income tax. You make a profit on shares, you pay tax on a profit. Not on the full price.

I covered the lost revenue point on the last page and there’s another idea on the post above. I’ve no doubt this tax is here to stay, but that doesn’t make it justifiable.

Increase council tax? How is increased monthly tax better than a 1 off payment?

Personally I think council tax is unfair and would like to see it scrapped, in favour of say a 3% income tax rise.

There’s another thread been started on this, this seems a better place to discuss.

This tax change will create huge distortions in the market. The number of transactions in the £250-£1m bracket will fall dramatically, it will be hard to buy and to sell. If the SNP has assumed this will raise same/more money overall they may get a nasty surprise. As per oldbloke’s example above it will negatively impact job mobility.

Most countries I know have a fixed property purchase tax, its not banded. Something like 5% in France, 2% Switzerland are the examples I know.

jambalaya – Member
£250-£1m bracket will fall dramatically,

everyone below 325k will pay less. (90% of the market in scotland.)

I think youse are looking at this through a UK lens. I doubt if this was applied to the rest of the UK the rates would be the same.

Well, we bet that the price of white goods, carpets and curtains is going to rise dramatically 😉

ninfan – Member
Well, we bet that the price of white goods, carpets and curtains is going to rise dramatically

Ha, aye true, but only if the scottish rates where applied uk wide, which is unlikely.

Stamp duty distorts the housing market and reduces labour mobility. This has the knock on effect on transactions and economic efficiency. It should be abolished. The gain would be the increase in economic activity which would offset the output and efficiency losses.

But governments love to meddle.

teamhurtmore – Member
Stamp duty distorts the housing market and reduces labour mobility. This has the knock on effect on transactions and economic efficiency. It should be abolished. The gain would be the increase in economic activity which would offset the output and efficiency losses.

But governments love to meddle.you’d do away with government, wouldn’t you? 😆

No not all, it serves a very good purpose. But I would seek to minimise its influence as much as possible – it’s my libertarian streak!

@seos – yes misunderstood calculation, it will still create a distortion not least as house prices are highest where there is the work and where people need to move to job reasons

teamhurtmore – Member
No not all, it serves a very good purpose. But I would seek to minimise its influence as much as possible – it’s my libertarian streak!

I’m not one for anarchism myself, especially not the capilatist variety! 😉

seosamh77 – Member

Ernie I was at a meeting last night with an rmt representative there. There question was put to him that it’d be unrealistic for scotrail to be brought in to public ownership within 5 years anyway and he pretty much agreed.

So you claim to have been at a meeting in which someone, allegedly an RMT representative, said something which apparently supports the point you are trying to make.

Despite providing no proof or evidence you expect me to accept your, presumably unbiased, version of events and your interpretation of what was said.

And you want me to reject the official RMT Press Office release in favour of your unofficial one.

http://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-on-scotrail-franchise-award/

Well that sounds perfectly reasonable, I can’t see how I can argue with that.

However as it happens I was also at a meeting last night too, and there was an SNP representative present who when it was put to him pretty much agree that everything the SNP and the Scottish government had said on so-called “independence” is actually complete bollocks.

So I’m afraid that I’ve just trumped you seosamh 8)

😆 Look at the SNP submission to the Smith commission, railways are specifically mentioned in relation to new powers. coincidence? I think not.

btw the meeting was radical independence southside, you can check whether there was an RMT representative there or not here: https://www.facebook.com/events/576218049171215/

you got a link to your meeting? 😆 😉

Well if you are trying to point just how contradictory the SNP can be, well done, thank you……they say one thing and do something different.

SNP in call for increased devolved powers for rail

And I’ll stick what the RMT says is their policy, as stated here :

http://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-on-scotrail-franchise-award/

Even if you do allege that an RMT representative “pretty much agreed” with you.

never agreed with me, it was actually a guy that worked for natwork rail thast posed the question to him, i was just an observer.

tbh I never knew about that 2012 article. btw as I mentioned a thousand times i’m not and snp supporter. I’m interested in pro indy opposition to the snp if the truth be told…

But i dont see how the snp position is contradictory at all, they have to work within rules stated by westminster and they are calling for full devolution, how are these things coontradictory? Is there some indication from westminster that they are going to devolve rail in the next few weeks that would make these positions contradictory?

Natwork Rail? Great name for when it’s renationalised 🙂

😆

Ooh, what a surprise – the big debate we were promised on Scottish powers has turned into a debate about English devolution with Labour and the Tories arguing with each other as usual.

Acronym of the moment is EVEL – English Votes for English Laws.

None of the three main party leaders, who made that solemn vow before the referendum, bothered to turn up.

A SNP MP who asked when they would start talking about Scotland was told that the debate wasn’t really about Scotland.

Stitched up good and proper.

Now now Ben ! The two conversations are going on in parallel. The SNP have been trying find fault with the Scottish devolution document but I thought Hague answered Salmond’s non-points quite firmly. The Labour party are getting stitched up here of course but they should have seen it coming. The calls for greater regional devolution cut both ways.

Conservative proposal is to give Scotland total control over tax. The sting in the tail (for Labour) is combined with English votes for English laws means equivalent control over English taxes. Gordon Brown has spotted it and is complaining bitterly. Strange how things work out eh ? 8)

If the English want English votes for English laws (and they should) they should go ahead and launch their own devolved parliament. Westminster is the UK parliament and anyone elected to it should get to vote on any matters that come up on it’s agenda. Asking or telling Scottish MP’s not to vote on English stuff isn’t the way forwards. And these things definitely should not run in parallel. That wasn’t part of the deal and could hold up any further devolution for Scotland for a long long time.

We don’t need a whole new parliament building etc with all those costs (like Holyrood) we can jut have English votes at Westmister whilst the Scots and Welsh are doing their thing in their own Parliaments. The extra powers Scotland is getting is the deal, anything beyond that should be held up for a long time, we don’t want all this nonsense again for a very very long time. We’ve had the vote, it was No.

FTFY

Using Westminster is fine, 533 MPs represent English constituencies. It will be much cheaper to overpay the 117 Scottish, Welsh and Irish MPs who will have a much lesser workload if there is further devolution than it would be to pay for yet another layer of representation involving 500+ EMPs.

We’ve had the vote, it was No.

You’re not taking the party line that it was “decisive” and that’s that for ever and ever are you? A 55-45 result is not by any measure decisive enough to be put to bed for ever.

The deal was new powers. Nothing about it being tied in to anything else.

we can jut have English votes at Westmister whilst the Scots and Welsh are doing their thing in their own Parliaments.

No you cant. It’s the UK parliament and it should stay that way. By all means hold an English parliament there but it needs it’s own elections and it’s own rules etc.

We don’t need a whole new parliament building etc with all those costs (like Holyrood) we can jut have English votes at Westmister

well if that does not cure the dominance of the english at westminster then what will?

The main issue here is you could have one govt for all the uk not having th e majority in England and all sitting in the same place with the same people and no actual “english” ministers for the dept they are responsible. It will create a massive power struggle in the same place.
Its not workable and the Torie are doing it to harm Labour rather than serve democracy.

@whatnobeer, no what @mefty says. You have all the extra overhead up in Scotland, we don’t need or want that, no sir-eee.

It’s not a party line as such IMO. I posted on here a year ago the worst outcome was a no vote and then the Scots trying resurrect this every 5 mins. Its done and dusted for a long time, I won’t say forever but part of me thinks that’s the case. Once oil runs out the devolution argument will die totally as what’s uneconomic today (but not recognised by many) will be financial suicide 20 years from now. You had 45-55 on a near 90% turnout. If had been 51/49 Yes that would have been permanent so you have to take 55-45 No the same way, no ? 😉

JY, just to be clear I meant we have have the UK votes at Westminster and the English ones at Westminster too.

@Scotroutes, I am repeating what I read on news websites but it would make total sense for Cameron to recommend Holyrood has total power over income tax as the flipside is the English MPs get total control over English income tax. it makes no sense for Scotland to have total power over corporation tax as you’ll just get the “race to the bottom” George Galloway spoke of. Scotland would just turn into a another Ireland with sweetheart deals for companies and a 10% corporate tax rate.