Isn't that countered by UBR in lieu of Council Tax?

You can claim a proportion of fuel, 'phone, mortgage interest (if any), etc, etc.

I don't work from home now anyway





Unless you've heard something that I haven't heard ?

I work for a company, but am home based and I get the princely sum of £156 per year as a tax free allowance for using it. The whole of our York office went home based when they shut it (around 60 people), so the company pay out £9360 per annum and save a fortune in council tax, electricity, heating etc.

Yeah, but you get the last laugh by posting on RLFans all day when you should be working.

That got rid of him! Must have a conscience.

I would keep the top rate 50% tax and have a 'Mansion tax'. After all we are all in this together?

Good suggestion about the mansion tax in a letter in tonight's 'paper - base it on % of value last time the property changed hands. That way people who have lived in their house for years and don't necessarily have much income don't get caught, but the current rich do. A simple solution to one major objection.

I'm all in favour of abolishing the 50p tax rate and replacing it with a 60p rate

Be fair. There are a few more terminally ill or seriously disabled to exploit before the government can consider that.

Interesting to see on QT last night that both Will Young and Will Self had no problem with paying a 50p top rate of tax, as they said: they'd already earned £150k before the 50p rate kicked in.



Then on This Week, we were treated to that well-known political sage Peter Stringfellow, whingeing & moaning about "HIS" conservative party not having the balls to abolish the 50p tax rate, despite the "fact" that it was obviously stifling enterprise, investment and entrepreneurship.

A few facts:



7,800,000 - the number of people in the UK who earn less than £15,000 a year.



£15,000 - the average amount of tax breaks claimed by those earning £150,000 or more.



31% - the proportion of the working population who earn less in a year than the richest 1% annually claim in tax breaks.



From: @TUCnews

As you are into facts, what exactly are the "tax breaks" of which you speak?

[url=http://www.tuc.org.uk/tucfiles/243/50percenttax.pdfRead the report yourself.[/url (34 pages, but no pictures)

I like that idea, except that people who bought at the top of the market will get stung.

It would seem the Tories don't want their rich mates to pay a mansion tax and will veto it. As we are all in this together then there must be money available to veto public sector increases in pension contributions or veto the cuts in benefits etc...

People who can't afford to live in big houses can always downsize, you know like the poor people have to...

So old ladies are expected to move house? Bit of stressful thing to do / have the enegy to do.



It's odd when it is suggested that young people move to where the work is people bleat about being away from home and community but when it comes to old dears leaving their homes of 60 years, that's alright! Bizarre.

No more bizarre than this dog's breakfast of a government insisting that if you are on benefits, you should be forced to downsize or even let a spare room, to enable you to keep your benefits.



As I have stated on numerous occasions LVT is the only fair way to tax property and the land it sits upon.

Out of interest, and to get some perspective on different points of view, how much does one have to be earning before one is well off?



And is it as straightforward as that? Do we allow for regional variations and disposable incomes, i.e. the amount that is left after household living expenses are paid?

If you're wanting a property tax, how about removing principal private residence relief for top rate taxpayers?



That way any gains in the value of the property from the time it was bought to the time it is sold will be subject to CGT.

HMG always talk about low top income tax rates because of the need to look after those wealth creating entrepreneurs. As I see it a better way of looking after true entrepreneurs (rather than the professional classes, media types, etc - who won't go anywhere) if not to worry about income tax. Tax them highly on that score but let them benefit from a sliding scale of CGT on business disposals. At present they get an effective 10% tax charge on modest disposals. Much better IMO, if they paid say, 25% on small disposals sliding DOWN to say, zero % of disposals of 250M +. That creates an incentive to build the business and not sell out at say £25M to a big company who then lays off half the staff but to keep dynamic. growing companies running until they are much bigger - thus creating a vibrant growing economy and increasing employment.

Haven't we all seen enough of optimistically inflated company valuations, without offering direct encouragement to do so?

Rich people pay enough tax already as it is.

No they don't.