An influential think tank says Capital Gains Tax on buy to let properties and second homes should be levied at the higher rate of the income tax of the owner.
Meanwhile the annual exempt allowance of £12,000 on CGT should be slashed to £1,000.
These are the views of the Institute for Public Policy Research, an influential think tank.
CGT has traditionally been lower on investment properties and other activities because they involve risk-taking, while heavier taxed income from employment and savings interest reflect their much lower risk.
However, CGT is already 10 per cent higher for the sale of buy to lets and second homes - at 18 per cent and 28 per cent for basic and higher rate taxpayers - than for investments.
But a new report from the IPR insists: “Many of the capital gains made today are, in fact, ‘rents’. Primary residences are exempt from capital gains tax and we do not propose this exemption is removed, but property speculators and owners of multiple homes have benefitted from rising property prices and lower taxes on capital gains than employment income.”
It continues: “House prices have increased dramatically over the past four decades as a result of both commodification and financialisation, and much activity within the financial sector is speculative. As a result, many of the gains generated from these activities are not the result of genuine risk-taking to induce participation, but rather non-productive gains that increase inequality without expanding the productive potential of the economy, or ‘economic rents’.”
The IPPR also wants the scrapping of 'exemption at death' which it claims encourages people to hold assets for life to allow those who inherit the assets to avoid CGT.
“The UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, and income inequality could be set to worsen as capital and property ownership become more important sources of income generation” the institute claims.
You can see the full IPPR report here.
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Absolute garbage
Yet another idea to reduce the supply of rental properties and increase rents leading to a rent cap.
Why don't they just be open & honest (wishful thinking I know) and announce they want to abolish the PRS an expropriate aall properties held by private Landlords.
Stop this death by a thousand cuts.
An honest politician - there's an oxymoron!
The phrase that gets me at the moment is that Government recognises the importance of the PRS. Complete BS!
They just hate the idea of anyone struggling and striving to achieve asset purchases.
They want everyone on slave wages so they can be better controlled..
Asset income gives the owner financial freedom which they hate.
What they WON'T deal with is where everyone is supposed to live if private capital isn't used to provide rental accommodation.
But then idiot socialists never deal with real world realities.
Many private landlords see this as pension income or funds to cover nursing home care later in life. This will leave more in the chancellors pot for those who need it more. Logical you would think!
Logical doesn't come into it. Does it win votes? Is it beneficial for the people in power, or who want to be in power NOW? These are the only questions to ask.
Why are these idiots so obsessed with inequality? Inequality in natural and inevitable. The problem is poverty and lack at the lower end of society, THAT is the issue that needs to be addressed.
Inequality is irrelevant, and dealing with it in this way is tantamount to dealing with a flat tyre by letting the air out of the other 3 so they're equal.
Poverty!?
What is that!?
Anyone on welfare is in the upper 25% of income earners though of course benefit recipients do nothing for their welfare income.
The ones suffering from poverty are those in FULL-TIME jobs who after all expenses have less remaining income than those on welfare.
We have just had some idiot Scottish businessman bemoaning that BrExit will cause all his EU migrant workers to disappear and that his and other Scottish businesses won't be viable.
So what about all the feckless welfare claiming layabout Scots that could do all those jobs the EU migrants currently do.
The reason they don't is because welfare pays more than working in the low wage hospitality industry which is only sustainable with low wage migrants because of Working Tax Credits.
There is much of the UK economy that potentially ISN'T viable without low wage migrants.
As long as welfare pays more than working and there are cheap migrants to do jobs that welfare recipients won't do poverty will be for those who have normal domestic expenses and work.
Those on welfare are far from poverty stricken!
What a disgusting bunch of short-sighted envious morons this think tanks is. These idiots get listened to!
Presumably they will move onto people who purchased their council houses years ago for c.£7k, put new windows, kitchen and bathroom in and sold for £90k, with a tax free, easy profit? Or are we going to forget about them...
Yep they put them on the open market for sale and it seems only LL were interested in buying them.
These lot havent seen poverty i mean real poverty. Thats why they see rogue landlord putting too many people in one room. These tenants are effectively used to it as they live that way in their own country like india and poor areas in hong kong. Not that we do it here.
Yep that is why British workers are priced out of work because there is no way they would live like migrants are prepared to do.
This is unfair Labour competition which is what MASS UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION has facilitated
actually, we British are not priced out of work. They are just plain lazy. Being in benefit works far better than being in a job as the tax are way too high in comparison to other countries . Even doctors retired early just because it wasnt worthwhile to work hard and long hours.
Yep I do agree that welfare facilitates the feckless to be lazy.
But the bleeding heart liberals keep up the fake news that those on welfare suffer poverty.
We know that is complete b######s but the left-wing media like Channel 4 and the BBC continue to propagate fake news.
Hi Paul, unfortunately, TV is the best influence on the unsuspecting viewers who do not know the whole scenario and of course where it benefited them. It's sad to see how we fall so far behind from the rest of the world who keep thriving to work harder to get on par with us.
If they continuously impose policies to cut down capitalism in the country and from outside investors, they only drives us further into debts which are already well over our head. We seriously need outside income to flow into UK, not try to shove our power into their face and object to any purchase of houses which we ourselves does not want to buy or cant afford to buy. This will input some much needed cash into the economy to avoid another incoming recessions.
What you suggest is exactly what the Blair Labour Govt recognised.
It knew socialism was despised by most people and consequently didn't adopt radical socialist policies.
It was a winning strategy only brought down by the CC.
Say what you like about Blair but he has been the most successful PM the UK has ever had.
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