Cable still pressing for mansion tax on £2m homes
Monday, 23 January 2012 11:08 AM
Business secretary Vince Cable is continuing to press for a mansion tax on homes worth over £2m in this year's budget, according to reports over the weekend.
The annual one per cent levy was first proposed in the Liberal Democrat election manifesto but not included in the coalition programme for government.
Any revival of the idea is likely to be resisted by chancellor George Osborne as he plans for the budget on March 21.
But Cable, the second most senior Lib Dem in the government after Nick Clegg, told the Sunday Telegraph: "A mansion tax is still very much on the agenda – it is a very good idea."
He went on: "It is good for two reasons. It would constitute a tax on wealth rather than income, which we believe to be right, and also in economic terms it creates the right sort of incentives in the property market."
The paper reported that the mansion tax could raise as much as £1.7bn a year and that there are estimated to be up to 50,000 properties in Britain worth more than £2m.
Someone with a property worth £2.5m would pay £5,000 a year while a house worth £5m would attract a charge of £30,000 a year.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, Cable argued it was "perverse" that rich foreigners could buy exclusive homes in Britain and contribute just £1,000 a year in council tax to the public finances.
However it quoted a Downing Street source as saying that a mansion tax is "highly unlikely".
Want to be the first to know when we break a story? Follow @AboutProperty on Twitter and subscribe to our free weekly newsletter.
