Saturday, May 29, 2010

More CGT Fun

As I mentioned the other day, the Daily Mail has been asking property investment companies to find sympathetic investors who are worried about the proposed rise in Capital Gains Tax. This is the sort of thing the stories are being used for. In the case of couple who have owned a second home for years and want to use it to fund their retirement- it isn't obvious to me why the don't simply keep making money from the rental income rather than selling the house.

CGT is neither the best nor the worst tax out there, but if it is a threat to property prices the Daily Mail will act as if it is the reintroduction of the Window Tax.

5 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

"it isn't obvious to me why the don't simply keep making money from the rental income rather than selling the house."

Exactly. Redwood and the Home-Owner-Ist faction who say that CGT 'threatens people's retirement income' are just devious lying shits.

Ross said...

I had thought that John Redwood would be more rational on these sort of things than most politicians.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JR is totally rational.

I am not aware that he went in for flipping taxpayer funded second homes himself, but most of his constituents are rabid Home-Owner-Ists crying 'We must protect the hallowed green belt' and 'House prices can only go up' and so on.

Matthew said...

I'd say his expenses were a bit dodgy really.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5340209/John-Redwood-submitted-3000-bill-twice-MPs-expenses.html

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Surely the reason you would want to sell not leave it being rented out is because otherwise you are left with a property on death, when in fact you might want to spend the money?

Ross said...

Matthew, yeah but they are framing it as responsible home owners being deprived of a stable income after retirement- not being deprived of the opportunity to go on a spending spree.